Dearest

Qin Ai De

This deeply moving drama charts the turmoil of a Chinese couple whose child is abducted.


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  • Director Peter Ho-Sun Chan
  • Producers Jojo Hui Yuet-Chun, Peter Ho-Sun Chan
  • Screenwriter Zhang Ji
  • With Zhao Wei, Huang Bo, Tong Dawei, Hao Lei
  • China-Hong Kong 2014
  • 130 mins
  • Production company WE Pictures Limited

Celebrated director and producer Peter Ho-sun Chan (Comrades, Almost a Love Story) follows last year’s Chinese box-office smash American Dreams in China with a distinct change of tone in this scaled-back, deeply moving drama about the issue of child abduction in China. The lives of Tian Wen-jun (Huang Bo) and his ex-wife Lu Xiao-juan (Hao Lei) are thrown into turmoil when their young son goes missing. Wracked with guilt because it happened on his watch, Wen-jun embarks on a quest to find him. Overcoming the tensions in their already frayed relationship, Wen-jun and Xiao-juan join a support group active in exposing child abduction rings. Enduring several years of false-sightings and an unthinkable number of scams, they finally find their son living with a foster mother (Zhao Wei), but their considerable troubles are far from over. Drawing on true stories from the parents of kidnapped children with great delicacy and nuance, Chan and writer Zhang Ji explore three distinct, highly-charged experiences: the lasting guilt of having ‘lost’ a child; the difficulty of reintegrating a child who is subsequently found; and the discovery that an adopted child has been abducted. The sophisticated storytelling is inflected with subtle observations about class, contemporary values and the difference between city and rural life. Featuring excellent performances from its stellar Chinese cast.

Clare Stewart