Trinity CineAsia has acquired all rights for the U.K., Ireland and France to Dear You, the Teochew-language family drama that has become the heroic underdog story of China’s 2026 box office. The U.K. distributor picked up the title from Hugoeast and Damai Entertainment and will open it in British and Irish cinemas June 26, with a French theatrical release to follow. The acquisition was announced on the first day of the Shanghai International Film Festival, running June 12-21.
Released in China on April 30 with little fanfare, Dear You was made for a reported 14 million RMB (about $2 million) and cast largely with non-professional actors from the Chaoshan region — its lead a 20-year-old finance student with no prior screen credits. Six weeks in, the film’s Chinese gross stands at RMB 1.69 billion (roughly $250 million), per ticketing platform Maoyan — some 120 times its production cost — with only Han Han’s Lunar New Year racing comedy Pegasus 3 having earned more in the country this year. The film has also brought a much-needed burst of energy to China’s box office, which is currently down about 40 percent, year-on-year, from 2025.
The film’s legs show no sign of buckling. On Friday, day 44 of its run, Dear You was more than doubling the opening-day takings of Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, according to real-time Maoyan data — and the platform now forecasts a final domestic total of more than RMB 1.8 billion ($266 million) for the Chinese feature. Word of mouth has done the heavy lifting: the drama, directed and co-written by Chaoshan native Lan Hongchun, holds a 9.2 score on review platform Douban from more than 700,000 users, one of the highest ratings for a Chinese release in the past decade.
