For Chaozhou-born singer Zheng Zhili, watching the Chinese film Dear You in Los Angeles felt less like sitting through a movie than opening a door to memories of home.
More than a decade ago, while pursuing his career in one of China's major cities, Zheng wrote Tea Fragrance, a song inspired by his longing for his hometown of Jieyang in Guangdong province. Years later, now living overseas himself, he found the film's portrayal of migration, family separation and attachment to one's ancestral home deeply familiar.
"Tea is an important carrier of Chaoshan culture," Zheng told China Daily after a preview screening of Dear Year in LA on Thursday. "The music in the film reminded me of Tea Fragrance, the song I wrote more than 10 years ago. It even inspired me to write a new song about the wanderers from Chaoshan."
That sense of recognition was echoed by other viewers as Dear You, one of China's surprise box-office successes of 2026, opened in North America on Sept 4.
Distributed by Well Go USA Entertainment, the film opened at more than 160 theaters across major US and Canadian cities, including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Toronto and Vancouver.
Directed and co-written by Lan Hongchun, a filmmaker from Guangdong's Chaoshan region, the 118-minute family drama is spoken primarily in the Teochew dialect and features a largely nonprofessional cast. It became a word-of-mouth phenomenon after its release in China on April 30, eventually grossing more than 1.8 billion yuan ($264 million) by mid-June, according to ticketing platform Maoyan.
Yet its resonance in the US appeared to extend well beyond its commercial success.
In New York City, the poignant drama featured both English and Chinese subtitles and left many in the audience at a Regal Cinema in tears.
Sniffles could be heard throughout the screening as the audience was clearly touched by the story that crossed cultures.
"Yes, I cried," Ella Fang, 31, who was born in China but now lives in Virginia, admitted after the screening.
Fang emigrated from China to the US at a very young age and related to missing her family while abroad.
"It was very good. I can use FaceTime to talk with my mom but that film was about 50 years ago, so it was more challenging if they missed their family. The friendship and the love that continued on and the passing of the love got to me … especially the ending."
At the center of the film are qiaopi—letters, remittance receipts and other correspondence once sent home by generations of Chinese emigrants living overseas. According to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, more than 160,000 qiaopi documents have been preserved in Guangdong and Fujian provinces, recording the lives of overseas Chinese and their ties with families in their ancestral hometowns.
In Dear You, those letters become the thread connecting a family separated across China and Thailand. A debt-ridden grandson travels to Thailand searching for the grandfather he believes abandoned the family, only to discover a decades-long story of sacrifice, responsibility and care hidden behind the letters and remittances that had crossed the sea for years.
For many Chaoshan-born viewers in LA, that history was not distant.
Howard Lin, a longtime Chinese immigrant from Chaozhou, said his father had also traveled from China to Southeast Asia and that he had witnessed the hardships endured by his parents' generation.
After spending several decades in the United States himself, Lin said the experiences depicted in the film felt closely connected to his own family history.
"Generation after generation, we have worked hard to build a life overseas and put down roots, much like the Nanzhi family portrayed in the film," he said.
For Lian Ruixiong, who grew up in Chaozhou before studying and later settling in the US, even small details in the film, such as preserved olive vegetables and fried Chinese olives, brought back memories of home.
Lian, who has lived in the US for about two decades and now has children of his own, said preserving the Chaozhou language became especially important in his family.
"When my mother was still alive, she would often call me and ask, 'Does my granddaughter speak Chaozhou?'" he recalled. "I would tell her, 'Let's sing a Chaozhou song together.' That's how my daughter learned to speak Chaozhou."
"My mother passed away two years ago. I think she would be comforted to know that we are carrying on the Chaozhou language and culture," he said.
For Ding Keer, a Chinese immigrant in her 30s from the Chaoshan region, the story was equally familiar.
"When I was growing up, we would often hear stories like those portrayed in Dear You in the rural areas of our hometown," she said. "I even had relatives who left China for Southeast Asia many years ago and never returned. So the story felt very familiar to me, but also deeply sad."
"Chinese immigrants have always faced many hardships overseas, and they often relied on and helped one another," she added.
Zheng said the film also reminded him how dramatically the circumstances of overseas Chinese have changed across generations.
"Those overseas Chinese had it so hard," Zheng said. "China was not as developed then. I am also living overseas now, but we are so fortunate today because our ancestral country has become so strong."
Near the film's conclusion, references to the contributions earlier generations of overseas Chinese made to their hometowns also struck him.
"In a way, we have all come this far standing on the shoulders of our ancestors," he said. "That is why we can do so well today."
The response in LA also suggested that the film's appeal may extend beyond audiences who share its specific cultural background.
Film producer Alexander Gray described it as "very sincere" and praised its storytelling.
"I know it was a massive hit in China," Gray said. "I saw a lot of headlines about how popular it was, and I wanted to study the history because of that."
He said he hoped more Chinese films would reach Los Angeles theaters.
LA-based playwright and theater director Elizabeth Wong called the film "a beautiful, soul-clutching film" that was "heartwarming" and "uplifting".
She said she was particularly drawn to the way the film presents immigration through longing for home, family responsibility and the practice of sending letters and money across borders.
"It's a different perspective on the immigrant experience," Wong said, adding that the film shows "how hard people work and how much they thought about home".
She also praised the film's humor, humanity and performances, saying its young actors were "phenomenal".
Morgan Ji said the cultural setting felt immediately recognizable to Chinese viewers, but believed the story could reach much further.
"The entire cultural context, the elements, the emotions and the historical background of the film are something we can completely relate to," Ji said. "It is the culture we grew up with."
"But I don't think the film speaks only to people from Chaoshan," he added. "I believe scholars and audiences from both Chinese and Western cultural backgrounds can find something in it that resonates with them."
The same themes also found resonance among younger Chinese living abroad.
Zhang Chi, vice-president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at the California Institute of Technology, said the film spoke to his experience as an international student living thousands of miles from his family.
"As international students, we are also thousands of miles away from our families," Zhang said. "Although times have changed, for various reasons, we can still have that feeling that going home is a very long journey."
What moved him most, he said, was the film's emphasis on cultural connection with one's hometown.
He pointed to scenes in which children of overseas Chinese learn classical Chinese poetry as a way of understanding their roots.
"But what moved us most was the cultural connection between individuals and their hometown," Zhang said.
His student organization at Caltech regularly organizes cultural activities, including a planned Mid-Autumn Festival celebration featuring feihualing, a traditional poetry game.
"We hope these activities can help everyone appreciate the beauty of traditional Chinese culture and maintain our cultural connection with our hometown," Zhang said.
While the film deeply resonated with Chinese audiences, cinemagoers in New York agreed with those in LA that it had universal appeal and would be enjoyed by American audiences.
Steve Choudhury, 29, an American from Virginia, came to watch the film in New York with his friend Sally Zhu, 27, who is Cantonese from Southern China.
"I thought it was very moving," Choudhury said. "I came in not really knowing anything about it. I think that American audiences will warm to it, because even though it's about another culture, it's about relationships. I think everyone can relate to that, as it's about family.
"The more you learn about the grandpa's story, and how much he was helping the family, the better it gets … I learned a little bit about Chinese culture, especially qiaopi letters. I thought that must have been sad, I'd like to learn more. I was sniffling throughout."
On the East Coast, Dear You had its North American premiere when it closed the 25th New York Asian Film Festival at the SVA Theatre in New York on July 26.
Since then, some film lovers in the US have eagerly awaited its release in cinemas.
"It's a great, honest film about Asian family heritage and what people had to go through," said Lito Vals, 56, originally from California but now living in New York. "I hate to say it, I cried about five times. I'm glad I watched it by myself!
Vals added: "I lost my parents many years ago. My dad joined the navy in the Philippines to come to America in the 1950s. So, this is similar to what they had to do. My whole siblings were born in different places.
"I mean, it's not the same kind of story, but just that whole Asian heritage and what they went through, especially during that time my parents were the first generation to come here. So, for me, it was kind of like I've seen it all. It felt personal."
