Chinese father who inspired anti-human-trafficking film Dearest, starring Zhao Wei, reunited with son after 14 years

A Chinese father who has spent the past 14 years searching for his abducted son and inspired an anti-human trafficking film starring billionaire actress Zhao Wei has been reunited with the boy.

Sun Haiyang, whose story was the inspiration behind the 2014 movie Dearest, directed by Hong Kong director Peter Chan, finally met his son, 18-year-old Sun Zhuo, in Shenzhen, southern China, on Monday after a DNA test confirmed his identity.

The boy was kidnapped by a man surnamed Wu in 2007 while playing near their home in Shenzhen, and was sold to a couple in Shandong province, eastern China, who already had two daughters, as their third child, according to police.

A live broadcast of the reunion on the People’s Daily’s Weibo account on Monday where Sun and his wife cried and hugged their long-lost son has become one of the most viewed topics on Chinese social media with 23 million viewers.

“After 14 years and 57 days, he is a head taller than his mother. He brought us local specialities from where he lives now. He is the Sun Zhuo that all of us have looked for all these years …” the older Sun wrote later the same day on Weibo, where his username has remained “Sun Haiyang Looking for Son”.

The couple initially offered a 100,000 yuan (US$15,700) reward for clues after the boy, then aged 4, was lured away by Wu with a toy. They then raised it to 200,000 yuan (US$31,400) after failing to receive any useful information. “I was ready to spend all my money, and even borrow money,” Sun told the South China Morning Post in a previous interview.

He also named a steamed bun shop in Shenzhen the couple used to run: “A Shop to Look for my Son”, and posted photos of his son and the kidnapper on its signboard.