Dear You, xie xie! To be honest I went into this movie expecting some maudlin over the top melodrama only for a Chinese audience. But Lan Hongchun’s dares to do something that the US filmmakers would probably deem old fashioned: just tell a good story first and foremost.
The movie opens on hustler Hiou-ui (Zheng Runqi), slowly falling behind on payments on mountains of loans. Looking for a big payday to start over, he convinces his uncle Long (Zheng Pengsheng) to jet to Bangkok to let Hiou-ui try to collect the family fortune from his ama (grandma) Iap Sogriu’s (Wu Shaoqing) deadbeat ex husband Den Bhagseng (Wang Yangtong) and his mistress Zia Lamgi (Li Sitong).
The melodramatic elements are all laid bare in the first 30 minutes of Dear You. We see the adorable ama reminisce about her meet cute with Den, the longing and heartbreak of their letter correspondence from 1945 to 1978, and how Den’s decision to say altered Sogriu’s family forever. But that’s not the path Lan Hongchun’s movie chooses to take. Instead, the writer/director has manipulated hearts to be ready for the real tale. Dear You is actually a story about the immigrant experience. As we learn what happened with Den Bhagseng and Zia Lamgi, our initial hostility but open hearts learn and understand what really happened over those 33 years. Longing is the right word for all 3 main characters: poor Sogriu is left raising 3 kids on her own, relying on money being sent back to her by her husband she just wants to be with. Den is trapped between worlds, forced to leave and start over to raise money for his family, while also trying to build a life in Bangkok from nothing. And then there’s Zia Lamgi, fighting her own battles as a woman trying to run a business on her own with minimal education in a male dominated world. None of them are happy with this arrangement, but make the best of it for the sake of their loved ones and their communities. As everyone finally learns the whole story, I only heard sniffles and tears for the final 30 minutes, where the melodrama has earned its moment in the sun, to go for the big ending everyone wants for these people who have never known a life of contentment until now.
For all the setup I just described about Ama, Den, and Hiou-ui and their incredible family fables, Dear You is actually Zia Lamgi’s story. Li Sitong is incredible in this movie. Starting in her youth as an innkeeper’s (Fang Peisong) daughter, the burden of responsibility has fallen onto the poor woman’s shoulders, without any real consistent help in meaningful ways. Enter Den Bhagsheng, the Chinese immigrant she only knows as a cheapskate freeloading immigrant staying in her inn for free. The more she learns about him and how he lives her life, Sitong starts to grow that tiny heart of hers, to open and bear even more responsibility. Sitong gives Lamgi this steely resolve, accepting the harsh realities of the world but meeting their challenges head on, burdening all the hurt for herself so none of her adopted children or Den’s family has to feel that level of pain. Sitong does this over multiple quiet tears down her face, saying every emotion without saying anything at all. Wu Shaoqing is also excellent here as the ama. With Li Sitong handling the growing up part, Shaoqing’s strong, but melancholic Sogriu is an easy to root for character, who opens and closes the film like the pro she is.
A story of love and passion inside a wonderful lesson on Chinese history and resurrected stories of heroic immigrants? Dear You is so easy to love. Just open your heart and hear the tale, I promise you’ll be sniffling along with the theater I was in, hoping you have a Zia Lamgi, Den Bhagsheng, or Iap Sogriu in your life.