Trinity CineAsia has acquired all rights for the U.Okay., Eire and France to Pricey You, the Teochew-language household drama that has turn out to be the heroic underdog story of China’s 2026 box office. The U.Okay. distributor picked up the title from Hugoeast and Damai Leisure and can open it in British and Irish cinemas June 26, with a French theatrical launch to comply with. The acquisition was introduced on the primary day of the Shanghai International Movie Pageant, working June 12-21.
Launched in China on April 30 with little fanfare, Pricey You was made for a reported 14 million RMB (about $2 million) and solid largely with non-professional actors from the Chaoshan area — its lead a 20-year-old finance pupil with no prior display screen credit. Six weeks in, the movie’s Chinese language gross stands at RMB 1.69 billion (roughly $250 million), per ticketing platform Maoyan — some 120 occasions its manufacturing value — with solely Han Han’s Lunar New Yr racing comedy Pegasus 3 having earned extra within the nation this yr. The movie has additionally introduced a much-needed burst of power to China’s field workplace, which is presently down about 40 p.c, year-on-year, from 2025.
The movie’s legs present no signal of buckling. On Friday, day 44 of its run, Pricey You was greater than doubling the opening-day takings of Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, in response to real-time Maoyan information — and the platform now forecasts a ultimate home whole of greater than RMB 1.8 billion ($266 million) for the Chinese language function. Phrase of mouth has completed the heavy lifting: the drama, directed and co-written by Chaoshan native Lan Hongchun, holds a 9.2 rating on evaluate platform Douban from greater than 700,000 customers, one of many highest rankings for a Chinese language launch up to now decade.
Pricey You attracts its language and setting from Chaoshan, the nook of jap Guangdong province across the cities of Shantou, Chaozhou and Jieyang whose Teochew-speaking communities despatched scores of migrants into Southeast Asia within the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The story follows a debt-ridden grandson who travels to Thailand looking for the “millionaire” grandfather who left throughout wartime and by no means returned — solely to be taught the person is lengthy lifeless, and that the letters his grandmother obtained for many years have been written by a stranger. Lan has stated he spent three years interviewing greater than 120 aged Chaoshan residents, with many of the plot drawn from their accounts.
Thai actress Usha Seamkhum — the titular grandma of Thailand’s 2024 field workplace phenomenon The best way to Make Tens of millions Earlier than Grandma Dies, the nation’s Oscar submission that yr — makes a particular look within the movie, a nod to her personal Teochew-Thai heritage.
Cedric Behrel, Trinity CineAsia’s managing director, referred to as Pricey You “one of the most remarkable box-office success stories to emerge from China in recent years,” saying the discharge would attain “the many Asian communities who have long awaited the opportunity to see their history and identity reflected on screen in such a meaningful way.”
For Trinity, the movie joins a current U.Okay. slate of Chinese language titles that features the worldwide animation phenomenon Ne Zha 2, Zhang Yimou’s spy thriller Scare Out, Bi Gan’s Cannes prize winner Resurrection and the Jackie Chan actioner The Shadow’s Edge. The deal additionally extends the label’s relationship with Damai, the distributor previously often called Alibaba Footage, which begins the movie’s wider worldwide rollout on June 18 throughout Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, with North American and Australian dates anticipated to comply with.
