2026-09-23
How Dear You Reached Its Final Script
Did the writers of Dear You publicly explain every draft change, composite character, and deleted scene? The available record does not give a full draft-by-draft log. It does, however, identify a clear development path: after the outline, Lan Hongchun and his writing partner Yang Leng spent half a year on field research; in 2023, Lan and the writing team began the script and finished a first draft in about a month; the team then expanded that draft into a full novella before cutting it back; after a three-hour rough cut, already filmed side stories were removed to keep the dual female relationship at the center.
A partial process, not a complete draft history
The strongest answer is limited but useful: Dear You has not been presented through a complete list of drafts, revisions, and scene-by-scene changes. The confirmed material points to stages rather than a full archive. Those stages include an outline, field research, a first screenplay, novella expansion, reduction, a three-hour rough cut, and further editing.
That limit matters for viewers. The reported three-hour version was a rough cut, not a public release version. Likewise, the fact that some side-story material was filmed and later removed does not mean those scenes have been released in complete form. The film’s final shape came from selecting and compressing a much larger narrative body.
Fieldwork came after the outline
A The Paper interview republished by 21jingji.com reported that after the outline took shape, Lan Hongchun did not immediately start writing the screenplay. He and his writing partner of ten years, Yang Leng, first carried out half a year of field research. That places interviews and real-life material before the writing stage rather than treating them as background decoration.
The same interview also tied the story’s early shape to Lan’s documentary Four Seas Chao Flavor, during which he visited overseas Chinese families in Southeast Asia. It also noted that his third feature had originally been planned as a story about grandparent-grandchild bonds. Dear You therefore emerged from overlapping materials: overseas field visits, an initial plan for a grandparent-grandchild story, and the later focus on Qiaopi letters.
First draft, novella, and reduction
1905.com’s May 3 original interview gave the clearest writing timeline. In 2023, Lan Hongchun and the writing team formally began the script. Because the work had been nourished by stories heard earlier, the first draft was completed quickly, in about one month. That fact does not establish a total draft count; it only confirms the speed of the first pass.
The same 1905.com article reported that the team then expanded the first draft into a complete novella and later cut it back, a process described as taking two years. The same The Paper interview adds that after Zhu Liyun joined the Dear You team, she rewrote the script as a novel. For viewers, this explains why the finished film can feel restrained while still carrying the weight of a broader story world.
Composite characters and Qiaopi misdirection
The clearest publicly stated composite character is Zheng Musheng. A Nanfang Media Group article said Zheng’s prototype combined the images of many Chaoshan youths who went to Southeast Asia for work, including Lan Hongchun’s great-uncle. Lan said his mother told him that this relative also drove a rickshaw after leaving home, and that memory naturally informed Zheng’s creation.
The same article also explains how Qiaopi culture shaped the drama. Lan found during research that many people in earlier times were illiterate, so Qiaopi letters often had to be written or read by others, creating dramatic misdirection. In the film, the major reversal is that the person writing to Grandma for half a lifetime is not her husband but Xie Nanzhi, whose act is framed as a kind lie. Lan also said he heard many similar stories in which overseas Chinese kept sending money and letters in a deceased friend’s or brother’s name to give relatives comfort.
Why filmed side stories were cut
The editing stage made the reduction visible. 1905.com reported that the rough cut ran three hours. Lan then continued to shorten it because the film had to work as a market-facing feature. This is the key boundary: three hours describes an internal rough cut, not a released edition.
The article also reported that some side-story material had already been filmed, but it was removed so the film could foreground the dual female relationship. Simple lines were used instead to carry background emotional ties. That choice fits Lan’s description of Xie Nanzhi and Ye Shurou as forming a bond that was not kinship, yet stronger than kinship.