'Once Upon A Time In The Middle East' Cooks Up $148M Chinese Box Office Hit

The film follows Xu Fu, a struggling Chinese chef played by Shen Teng, who travels to a fictional Middle Eastern city inspired by early-2000s Iraq. Working at the Dragon Restaurant to clear his family's debt, his life is upended when war erupts, prompting him to turn the eatery into a refuge for local orphans and civilians.

Directed by Wen Muye and produced by Ning Hao, the movie has shattered expectations at China's summer box office, taking in roughly 1.2 billion yuan. Its rapid success points to a shift in what resonates with domestic moviegoers, particularly Gen Z.

Rather than celebrating battlefield heroics, the film centers on cross-cultural solidarity and mutual aid. It highlights the indiscriminate destructiveness of war and foregrounds the stories of ordinary migrant workers and vulnerable youth.

The narrative deliberately subverts traditional military epics, focusing on everyday survival through care work. Audiences have embraced its humane perspective, which rejects Western-centric war myths and offers an emotionally authentic portrait of civilians caught in conflict.

The film's overnight popularity signals a growing appetite for civilian-perspective war stories in Chinese cinema, with food serving as a bridge between cultures amid the chaos of battle.