This review is spoiler-free.

There are so many films that remind us of the beauty of love; not in a cookie-cutter idealised manner, but of the kind of love that sustains us through the ages, the love of a parental figure, or a friend that feels closer than family. In Dear You, director Lan Hongchun employs the long history of qiaopi – otherwise known as remittance letters sent to family from relatives working far from home – in order to tell a multigenerational story about love, loss and connection.

Performed completely in teochew, the film has been a genuine cultural phenomenon in China, emerging as a major box office hit and one of the highest rated Chinese films of the past decade due to word-of-mouth and rave reviews. Now realsing worldwide due to high demand, the film taps into the cultural imprint felt within diasporic communities, as well as those who simply love a well-crafted, sincere family drama.

The film is framed by the story of Hiau-ui (Zheng Runqi). Riddled by debt, he travels to Thailand in search of the grandfather his family believes abandoned them, only to uncover a decades-old secret hidden within a lifetime of letters. The film then hones in onto the connection between his grandmother, Iap Sok-jiu (Wu Shaoqing and Wang Xiaohui as young Sok-jiu), her husband Ten Bakseng (Wang Yantong), and a mysterious woman named Tsia Nam-ki (Li Sitong and Usha Seamkhum as Old Namki).

The plot moves across multiple timelines with a confidence that never feels showy or disjointed, and knows when and how to balance the time spent on past storylines as opposed to moving about excessively. In this case, the utilisation of the present allows sucker punches to land all the way until the film’s final moments, with the film’s messages never overly didactic but always kept close to the heart of the tale.

The power of the performances themselves works alongside the use of time and suggestion to the viewer enraptured throughout. There is an immediacy and intimacy to the lead performers that makes the emotional world of the film feel inescapable, as though you’re dragged (albeit gently) into it by the messy, urgent inner worlds of these characters. The mystery around Bakseng and Nam-ki’s relationship unfolds delicately without giving into unecessary, clichéd drama, whilst also providing profound insight into the power of kindness.

Li Sitong as Nam-ki and Wu Shaoqing as Sok-jiu both give performances that shine through their use of stillness and restraint, with Wu in particular wearing the decades worth of burden and pain upon her like a shroud, so much so that when the cloud finally lifts, one cannot help but feel that relief evaporate on screen. Li also works hard to show the subtleties of how her relationship with Bakseng evolves over several years, allowing actions and moments of pause to demonstrate the quiet strength that many women in her position held onto tightly in order to survive in Thailand during that period.

The realisation of the 1950s–60s Thailand setting feels textured and lived-in, not just recreated, allowing for the impact of the warm Thai weather, distance, and migration sit in the background of every scene, a reflection of the ever-constant pressures of supporting family far from home. As to be expected, a few supporting characters lean towards archetypes, but they never feel gratuitous in existence, and the focus on giving these characters emotional as opposed to purely practical connections to our main characters makes this a general non-issue.

All of this accumulates into a film that is very deliberately set up to pull every single heartstring you possess, and it knows it. As the film reaches its climax and all the threads of the past pull together, emotional waves keep catching you off guard as the story circles back on itself, with the profundity of the story inescapable.

The film never overstates its themes. Instead, it lets them emerge through both the actions of the characters, but also subtle suggestions in costuming and set design. Silence, and the quiet endurance of women across generations becomes a beautiful message that shines through, emphasising the message that kindness is not soft: it is often the hardest thing to continue to fight for.

At its centre, Hongchun has created a beautiful story about loyalty and love in all its forms, in the stubborn, sometimes painful ways people remain committed to promises long after they stop making sense. Given the many hardships faced not just by the teochew people that migrated from China, but by many diasporic peoples around the world, it lands heavy all the way up until the film’s final moments.

Ultimately, Dear You is a film that doesn’t rush to impress you. It unfolds carefully, gently enough for the viewer’s understanding to settle without being overwhelmed, so that its emotional tethers work on you and its two hour run time absolutely flashes by. As a result, it joins this year’s roster of fantastic, small-budget films with a strong story and emotional core that have hit it big: reminding us exactly why we love cinema to begin with.

Dear You is out in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on the 26th of June, with a French release to soon follow.