Chinese film 'Dear You' hits record profit, fuels box‑office boom

The independent Chinese movie Dear You (Thư Tình Gửi Bà Ngoại) was made on a modest budget of about 54 billion VND. Despite almost no marketing, word‑of‑mouth helped it achieve an unprecedented global box‑office total of roughly 7.3 trillion VND, delivering a profit more than 143 times its original cost.

The film earned a high 9.1/10 rating on Douban from over half a million votes and has been praised for its authentic storytelling. Director Lam Hong Xuan spent a decade interviewing around 300 overseas Chinese families to build the narrative, while lead actress Ly Tư Đồng, a newcomer born in 2004, received acclaim for her natural performance as Tạ Nam Chi.

The story, drawn from the cultural practice of “qiaopi” (letters and money sent by migrants), follows two women connected by decades‑long correspondence. After its domestic success, the movie was shown at Cannes and is slated for a theatrical release in Vietnam on 7 August, where it has already captured attention from Vietnamese netizens.