Cover The cast of Chinese blockbuster ‘Once Upon a Time in the Middle East’. (Photo: Movie poster)
The cast of Chinese blockbuster ‘Once Upon a Time in the Middle East’. (Photo: Movie poster)
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A wok, a restaurant and a handful of ordinary people. Wen Muye’s anti-war comedy-drama proves that feeding someone is its own kind of resistance
I walked into Once Upon a Time in the Middle East (or Welcome to the Loong Restaurant in Chinese) expecting a fish-out-of-water comedy. The posters show Shen Teng, one of China’s most famous comedy stars and its highest-grossing actor, surrounded by smiling children clutching vegetables. The early scenes are warm with the clatter of woks and the sizzle of onions. Then, about thirty minutes in, an airstrike tears the city apart, and you realise you are watching something else entirely.
The film centres on Loong Restaurant, a Chinese restaurant in the fictional city of Bahata in the Middle East, where a chef named Xu Fu lights his wok and where bombs fall outside. Xu is a fictional composite, not a biographical portrait of any single restaurateur, and the story draws from multiple real encounters of Chinese people living through war and conflict.
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Above Shen Teng as Xu Fu. The film shifts from warm kitchen comedy to unflinching war drama. (Photo: Movie still)
Shen Teng as Xu Fu. The film shifts from warm kitchen comedy to unflinching war drama. (Photo: Movie still)
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One inspiration was Chen Xianzhong, a Jilin native who studied Arabic at Peking University, first went to Iraq in 1984 and stayed for more than four decades. After the 2003 invasion, his Baghdad restaurant became a neutral space for journalists, refugees and stranded Chinese workers, until a car bomb forced it to close in 2005. Another was the story of Liu Lei and Shuai Xuejun, two former Shenzhen IT workers who opened China Dragon (or Loong) in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Liu went alone in 2003; Shuai joined him a year later. They hired chefs from China and ran the front of the house themselves, serving American soldiers and war correspondents.
The protagonist Xu is in debt and has a family back home. He has no opinions about the war brewing around him. He simply wants to cook, earn money and leave. He partners with Ma Junsheng, played by Jiang Qiming, the restaurant’s floor manager, while he handles the kitchen. They’re joined by Seif, played by 14-year-old Egyptian actor Omar Sherif, a war orphan who becomes Xu’s apprentice. Together, they turn the struggling eatery into a thriving spot that serves locals, American soldiers, and anyone with money and an appetite. When the invasion comes, everything changes.
Above Omar Sherif as Seif and fellow child actors. (Photo: Movie still)
Omar Sherif as Seif and fellow child actors. (Photo: Movie still)
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What makes Wen Muye’s film so extraordinary is that it does not reduce anyone to a single dimension. The war is shown from multiple vantage points: The Chinese outsiders trying to survive it, the locals living inside it, the soldiers sent to fight it. Every character has reasons, and the film takes those reasons seriously, even when it doesn’t excuse them. The result is a war story told with a rare, unsettling evenhandedness.
The production itself reflects that care. Unable to shoot overseas due to regional conflict, the crew built a full-scale replica of a Middle Eastern town at Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis: over 200 buildings across 100,000 square meters, assembled over six months. The kitchen set was fully operational, with working stoves and a functioning exhaust.
Above The friendship between Xu Fu and Ma Junsheng is one of the film’s emotional pillars (Photo: Movie still)
The friendship between Xu Fu and Ma Junsheng is one of the film’s emotional pillars (Photo: Movie still)
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As a dining editor, I have to talk about the food. It is not decoration here. It is the film’s moral language. Wen has said that the decision to tell a war story through a restaurant came from a simple contrast: war is cruel, while food represents happiness. Every dish carries an emotion particular to its moment.
The recurring image of the knife haunts the entire film. In Xu’s hands, a knife chops, slices and prepares. In other hands, the same blade kills. The film doesn’t lecture about this; it simply shows you what a tool becomes depending on who holds it.
What I keep coming back to, though, is the cooking. Wen shoots food the way most directors shoot action sequences. The wok hits the flame and the oil shimmers. The blade moves through ginger and garlic with a rhythm that feels almost musical. Steam rises off a finished plate, and the camera holds long enough that you can imagine the smell.
Above The trailer for ‘Once Upon a Time in the Middle East’
That matters, because the film uses those moments to build something you don’t want to lose. By the time the war arrives and the kitchen goes quiet, you feel the absence in your gut. The film earns that grief through the pleasure it gave you first.
This is a film that trusts you to feel its point rather than stating it. It shows you a man who keeps cooking, and lets you understand why. It doesn’t tell you food matters. It makes you hungry, then afraid, then grateful.
Go see it. It deserves the big screen. And make sure you eat before you go.
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A storyteller by day and a first-class food devourer by night, Fontaine is the Regional Dining Editor at Tatler Asia, overseeing dining content across all regions and shaping the brand’s editorial voice on food, chefs and culinary culture.
She is also Content Lead for Tatler Best and Co-jury Head for Tatler Best Hong Kong and Macau, guiding the awards’ editorial direction and evaluation process. With over 15 years in the lifestyle and media industry spanning London and Hong Kong, she brings a cross-regional perspective to the table.
Follow her on Instagram at @fontimes.
