BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- A low-budget, regional-dialect film with no movie stars, no franchise backing, and no major marketing push has become one of the biggest surprises in China's film industry in years -- and it is forcing studios and investors to question a formula long regarded as the safest route to box-office success.

File photo: IC

"Dear You," directed by Lan Hongchun, a Chaoshan-region filmmaker from southern China's Guangdong Province, grossed just 3.77 million yuan (about 554,500 U.S. dollars) on its opening day, April 30. Made on a reported budget of just 14 million yuan and shot entirely in the Chaoshan (Teochew) dialect, the film featured a cast led by first-time actors. Its lead role went to a 20-year-old finance student with no prior acting experience. The film had none of the ingredients that Chinese studios have long deemed essential to box-office success: star power, large production budgets or commercially proven genres.

Word of mouth changed that. The film's rating on review platform Douban opened at 9.0 and rose to 9.3, the highest score for a Chinese film in the past decade. Box office receipts, powered almost entirely by audience recommendations rather than star-driven promotion, have climbed toward 2 billion yuan. That translates into a return of more than 50 times its production cost for investors, based on the studios' share of box-office revenue -- among the highest return-on-investment ratios in Chinese film history.

The story draws on the history of "qiaopi" -- the letters and remittances sent home by earlier generations of overseas Chinese. While well-known in Chaoshan and other regions with deep migration traditions, it represents an important yet lesser-known chapter in China's migration history. UNESCO added the "qiaopi" archives to its Memory of the World Register in 2013.

In the film, Zheng Musheng leaves Chaoshan during wartime and later works in Thailand, while his wife, Ye Shurou, remains in China raising their children. After Zheng dies overseas, Xie Nanzhi, a woman of Chaoshan descent living in Thailand who had befriended him, chooses not to tell Ye immediately, instead continuing to send letters and money to Ye in his name. Over nearly two decades, the two women, though strangers separated by the sea, become quietly connected through correspondence and care.

Yet what began as a story rooted in one region has become a national phenomenon, resonating far beyond the communities whose history it depicts.

"THIS TIME IT'S COMPLETELY DIFFERENT"

For an industry accustomed to breakout hits appearing every couple of years, film critics say what sets "Dear You" apart is not that it succeeded, but how it succeeded.

"We really need a work like 'Dear You' to give more audiences confidence. This film will change the shape of the entire film market," said Yu Baimei, a prominent Chinese director, in an interview with Xinhua.

He noted that previous "dark horse" hits in Chinese cinema still relied on a more conventional production scale -- none broke through the 1-billion-yuan mark with an unknown cast, a niche dialect, and a limited budget. "This kind of success is revolutionary in a sense we haven't seen in over a decade," he said.

Rao Shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Association, framed the film's success as evidence of a broader structural shift. "'Dear You' proves that the old creative model -- simple genre packaging built around star power -- is over," he told Xinhua.

The Chinese film industry is undergoing "an irreversible structural adjustment," he said, pointing to competition from short-form videos and other forms of entertainment. In that environment, he argued, the market needs more mid- and small-budget films capable of drawing audiences back to theaters.

Speaking at an industry discussion during the Cannes Film Festival in May, Yin Hong, vice chairman of the China Film Association and a professor at Tsinghua University, attributed the film's success to its originality, emotional resonance, and "organic word-of-mouth."

Yin said the film's rise also reflected a growing ability among ordinary moviegoers to determine which films succeed. Social media platforms and review sites have weakened the industry's traditional gatekeepers, he said, to the point where a single blogger's video can now influence ticket-buying decisions more than a traditional critical review. The result, he argued, is that "audiences are increasingly reclaiming the power to judge a film's worth for themselves."

BETTING ON CONVICTION OVER CALCULATION

Few have observed that transformation more closely than Li Jie, president of Damai Entertainment, one of the film's production backers. Damai first invested in Lan's work in 2021, backing "Back to Love," the second installment of what has become known as Lan's "Chaoshan family trilogy," on little more than a hunch. That film performed well enough to convince Damai to back Lan's next project without hesitation.

"Over the past decade, I've come to realize that audience taste changes faster than creators can track it," Li said. "We used to believe genre and budget were a recipe for success. But nearly every time a good film breaks through, it proves that formula wrong."

He said his studio now weighs a director's creative conviction and long-term consistency above genre, budget, or star power when deciding what to back -- pointing out that Lan has never lost investors' money across three low-budget features.

In a recent interview with China Movie Channel, veteran director Derek Yee cautioned against reading too much into star power either way. "If the script is good and the film is well-made, a star can add polish. But if the script isn't there, the star does nothing -- there are plenty of precedents involving big stars and big productions that collapsed anyway," he said.

Ultimately, Yee argued, filmmakers can only focus on telling stories that move them first, trusting that a sincere story will eventually find its audience.

A METHOD THAT RESISTS REPLICATION

Lan's own account of his process suggests Li's assessment was not simply an investor's intuition after the fact.

Speaking at a cultural forum in Shenzhen, he said his team approaches filmmaking as a craft, much like traditional Chaoshan artisans who spend years refining wood carvings and embroidery. For them, patience, attention to detail and a long-term commitment to the work are essential to creating something lasting.

Lan recounted conducting nearly 300 interviews with overseas Chinese families across Southeast Asia, Europe and North America, and roughly six months of additional field research -- down to verifying the price of a movie ticket and the licensing rules for tricycle taxis in Bangkok a century ago -- before shooting began. "We try to make sure every plot point, every detail, every object has a documented basis," he said. "Authenticity is the lifeline of our work."

Whether the success of "Dear You" signals a lasting change in audience preferences remains uncertain. What is clear is that "Dear You" has unsettled assumptions that once appeared foundational to China's film business.

As producers search for the next "Dear You," Rao offers a caution: the film's success "cannot simply be replicated." Its biggest takeaway may be precisely that there is no new formula waiting to be copied.