Shantou-born writer and director Lan Hongchun got caught up in this summer’s back-to-basics cinema wave. Lan is far from an emerging filmmaker at home. His dedication to authentic, local dialogue has made him a star in Shantou, Guangdong province, since his 2018 debut, Proud of Me. And his use of charming nonprofessional actors and local social-media personalities has helped his intimate, tightly budgeted films find audiences.

Dear You was China’s second-biggest box-office hit — after Pegasus 3 — this year, until Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Soccer landed in cinemas a few weeks ago. But then Lan hardly has the international profile that Chow does. Dear You earned its nationwide release through sheer word-of-mouth publicity. Lan’s sophomore film, the 2022 dramedy Back to Love, is in cinemas due to popular demand.

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Lan has forged a distinct voice by leaning into his native Chaoshan culture and embracing the Teochew dialect in his family-forward films, highlighting the depth of regional diversity and thematic resonance, and proving that there is universality in specificity. In Dear You, a deeply in-debt slacker, Hiou-ui (Zheng Runqi), heads to Bangkok after he discovers his grandfather, Den Bhagseng (Wang Yantong), left Shantou in the ’50s and made a fortune in Thailand. Needing some fast cash, he heads down to demand his grandmother’s, and therefore his, share of the dead man’s estate, but uncovers a complex, tragic, decades-spanning story involving overseas remittances — linking his grandmother, Ye Sogriu (Wang Xiaohui/Wu Shaoqing as her older version) and Den’s seeming second wife, Zia Lamgi (Li Sitong/Usha Seamkhum).

On the strength of Dear You’s reception, Back to Love lands in theaters this week. The latter is a similarly sweet, if less nostalgic, family saga about one of life’s most broadly recognizable moments: taking a potential spouse home to meet the parents. In this case, Shenzhen-based Shantou boy Zekai (Zheng again) visits his very, very Chaoshan mother Xian (Zhong Shaoxian) and introduces her to his “nonlocal” fiancee Jingshan (Lu Shan). Not only is the prospective daughter-in-law from Hangzhou, she’s also divorced, both of which send Xian into a hilariously passive-aggressive tizzy. She proceeds to throw a wrench into the couple’s plans.

It’s no surprise that Lan’s success has empowered him and his distributors to include the localized, Teochew romanizations for character names alongside their Mandarin and English versions in Dear You’s subtitles. It’s a show of respect for diversity. The film’s characters are allowed to be who they are, and express their identities as they see fit. The success of Dear You is owed to Lan’s sensitive portrayal of Shantou — as a culture that’s admirable and not at all exclusive. We’ve seen wealthy Londoners, Manhattanites, and Hong Kong people centered in romantic comedies of error. It’s time for something new.

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That doesn’t mean Lan’s films are flawless. Dear You’s flashback-heavy melodrama relies heavily on a plot device some viewers will read as an ethical transgression in any culture, sapping the air from the story. It’s the bigger hit, but Back to Love is the better film, triumphing for old-fashioned, relatable storytelling about an old-fashioned, relatable personal milestone, propped up by warm, natural, frequently funny performances from Zhong in particular as the contrarian mom who cannot bring herself to admit that she was wrong, as well as from its colorful supporting cast. Fingers crossed for Proud of Me to find its way down here.

The writer is a freelance contributor to China Daily.