Chinese father who inspired anti-human-trafficking film Dearest, starring Zhao Wei, reunited with son after 14 years
- Father’s search was turned into a film Dearest starring Zhao Wei about human trafficking
- Distraught father named his steamed bun shop in Shenzhen ‘A Shop to Look for my Son’, and posted photos of his son on its signboard
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.
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Chinese parents reunite with long-lost son after 14 years
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.
Sun’s story became widely known after it was made into the movie Dearest in 2014, but no progress was made on the case until earlier this year when police started a special task force to search for the junior Sun.
The boy was sold by Wu to a couple surnamed Guo in Shandong and had been treated well, police said.
Sun junior also told CCTV that he only became aware of the fact that he was adopted recently when police contacted his teachers. He said he gets good grades in school and has been treated well by his adoptive parents and sisters.
Two other missing boys of similar age were found around the same time, the Ministry of Public Security said on Monday. They included Fu Jiantao, who was also trafficked by Wu just two months after Sun in Shenzhen, and Yang Laodi, who was abducted by another man in 2004 in the same city.
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Mother in China reunites with missing son after 32-year search
The two abductors and seven other people involved in the three separate cases are now in detention, police said. Sun’s adoptive mother and both Fu’s adoptive parents have been released on bail pending trial, while Sun’s adoptive father escaped punishment due to illness, according to Shenzhen police.
Under China’s criminal law, the statute of limitations for human trafficking cases, which carry a penalty varying from 5 years in jail to the death penalty, is normally 15 years.
Those who purchase kidnapped children face a jail term of up to three years, but it could be reduced if there’s no maltreatment of the abducted and do not seek to prevent the reunification of the child with their parents.
The reunion of the parents and son follows the solving of another high-profile child abduction case that inspired another film starring Hong Kong actor Andy Lau Tak-wah.
Guo Gangtang, a father from Shandong province who spent the past 24 years riding a motorcycle across the country looking for his missing son, finally reunited with the young man in July. His persistent search was made into a 2015 film called Lost and Love, in which Lau starred for free.
