Box office hit Dear You is fuelling heritage tours to China’s Chaoshan. How are villages responding?
Box office hit Dear You is fuelling heritage tours to China’s Chaoshan. How are villages responding?
The Chinese box office hit is drawing overseas visitors to the Chaoshan region, transforming filming locations into heritage tourism hotspots and raising questions about preservation and privacy.
CHAOSHAN, GUANGDONG: For Singaporean human resource professional Jennie Lim and her 69-year-old mother, Dear You was more than just a movie - it became the push for a trip they had long wanted to make.
Filmed almost entirely in Teochew, a language widely spoken in China’s Chaoshan region, the film tells the story of a young Chinese villager named Zheng Xiaowei, who travels to Thailand in search of his grandfather, Musheng, who fled in 1948 to escape conscription during the civil war.
Set against the backdrop of the mass migration of Teochew people from Chaoshan to Southeast Asia during the 1940s, the film explores themes of family, identity and homecoming.
Its success has also inspired descendants of Teochew migrants across Southeast Asia to visit Chaoshan and reconnect with their roots.
“We actually wanted to come here already,” Lim, 43, told CNA.
“But the movie was what made my mother decide to do the trip.”
Lim’s mother, a Hainanese woman named Tan, who married into a Teochew family, saw the trip as an opportunity to introduce her to important places tied to their family’s history.
Over eight days and seven nights, they explored Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang, Chaoshan’s core cities where most of the movie was filmed - retracing key scenes while discovering local culture and history that shaped their own family’s roots.
They even made it a point to watch the film in Chaozhou.
“The main purpose was to come and look at heritage, (places) and what actually brought our ancestors to Singapore,” Lim said.
BOX OFFICE SUCCESS
Released in China in April, Dear You has become one of the country’s highest-grossing films of 2026.
As of July, it has earned nearly 2 billion yuan (US$296 million) at the mainland Chinese box office, with overseas takings pushing its total global gross past 2.1 billion yuan.
A Mandarin-dubbed version premiered in Singapore in June, but overwhelming demand for the original Teochew language version prompted the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to approve more than 200 screenings to date.
After a preview screening in Bangkok on Tuesday (Jul 21), a Thai-dubbed version is set for a nationwide release on Aug 6.
The movie has also notably fuelled growing interest in Chaoshan heritage tours.
Following its release in Singapore and Malaysia, flight bookings from Singapore to Jieyang Chaoshan International Airport rose 23 per cent year-on-year between Jun 18 and Jul 19, while bookings from Malaysia increased 6 per cent over the same period, according to Trip.com Group.
Travel agencies say the film has reshaped how they package trips to the region.
Wong Yew Hoong, director of EU Holidays, said the company launched a new itinerary centred entirely on Chaoshan’s Teochew heritage - after interest grew.
“We always had itineraries going to that region,” Wong told CNA.
“Now the itinerary focuses solely on the eight clans of Teochew.”
HOW DEAR YOU TRANSFORMED A VILLAGE
The clearest sign of Dear You’s unexpected influence is not found inside a cinema, but on a small stone arch bridge in Xiqi Village, a farming community in Jieyang city, home to around 11,400 residents.
For years, the old bridge was largely forgotten. After a new one was built nearby in 2011, it gradually fell out of use.
Few imagined that it would one day become an iconic film location.
Under the summer sun, visitors patiently wait their turns to hold up a traditional silk banner and pose with props like a vintage bicycle to recreate one of the film’s most memorable scenes.
In the movie, it is where main characters, Musheng and Shurou, first meet during a Teochew “Ying Laoye” spring parade - after Musheng nervously approaches her and falls into the stream below.
“It’s unbelievable. I never imagined this place would suddenly become popular,” said 50-year-old Chen Youbo, who grew up in Xiqi before moving away eight years ago.
He still remembers how his once sleepy village transformed into an unlikely tourist destination.
“I (was) wondering why cars couldn’t pass through,” Chen said.
“Why were there so many people taking photos here? That was when I realised.”
His son even played Musheng’s stunt double in the bridge scene.
Seeing crowds gather, Chen returned to set up a stall nearby selling kungfu tea - a Chaoshan staple. “The weather was hot (and) there were many tourists here … so I thought, why not set up some tea tables and let people drink kungfu tea? We could earn a little.”
His stall was fleeting and lasted about a month, Chen said.
After the area around the filming site was renovated with new lawns and visitor facilities, Chen stopped operations.
Sixty-year-old Chen Hanlong became one of Xiqi’s first roadside vendors, turning the sudden influx of visitors into a small source of income.
Alongside selling drinks and other goods, he offered visitors the chance to pose with the movie’s iconic silk banner - and rather than charging a fixed price, he lets them decide how to pay.
“They pay whatever they want,” he told CNA, adding that customers have paid anything between 1.5 yuan to 10 yuan.
At the height of the movie’s summer box office boom, Chen recalled seeing as many as 18 tour buses arriving each day.
“Business has not been bad. I earn enough to cover my daily expenses,” he said.
For village leaders, however, the bigger challenge is turning a movie boom into something more lasting.
Village secretary Chen Youkun said the influx of visitors accelerated long-planned efforts to improve Xiqi’s infrastructure.
Three parking areas have since been added, while several million yuan has been invested in road widening, drainage works, landscaping and public spaces.
“The infrastructure here was previously quite weak, so we inves