Talk about the power of word-of-mouth marketing. A Chinese indie film just leveraged it to become an unexpected box-office hit. Dear You (给阿嬷的情书) was shot on a budget of RMB 14 million (about US $2 million) and has now taken in a whopping US $75million. Dear You had no A-list actors, and barely any marketing. So how did it pull this off?
The power of its storytelling undeniably sits at the heart of its success. Dear You follows generations of a Chaozhou family as a young, debt-burdened man sets out to track down his grandfather. His point of contact are remittance notes and family letters known as qiaopi, and his grandfather’s rumoured fortune is his motivation to set off.
Chaoshan culture fills the spaces in between family drama and a story centred on sacrifice, migration, and intergenerational love. The film’s regional identity and niche cultural references add emotional depth.
It’s a combination that’s landed Dear You a 9.1 rating on Douban, ranking it in the same league as heavy hitters like The Shawshank Redemption and Titanic. Reports have it that audiences are leaving the theatre in floods of tears. Rednote has helped too. Engagement on the film’s hashtag landed 1.7 million notes and almost 410 million views.
The Dao view: Dear You wins as a film with emotional depth
In recent years, the domestic box office has largely been dominated by major commercial spectacles, patriotic blockbusters, and large-scale fantasy franchises like Ne Zha 2, so it’s refreshing to see an indie film about estranged family make it the way Dear You has.
It’s not totally out of the blue. Derek Tsang’s Better Days (少年的你) grossed over 1.5 billion despite its relatively grounded premise of school bullying. Her Story (好东西) is a good case for small films getting widespread viral attention. So Chinese films can break box office records and online hype cycles without massive budgets. What those films have in common is sincerity. Could it be that audiences are tiring of big-budget spectacle?
