How ‘Dying to Survive’ Director Wen Muye Turned a Cook’s War Into $342 Million China Smash ‘Once Upon a Time in the Middle East’: ‘I Never Think About Social Issues in Advance’

Xu Fu went to the Middle East for the money. The Shenyang cook, played by Shen Teng in “Once Upon a Time in the Middle East,” takes the head-chef job at the Dragon Restaurant because the pay could help clear his family’s debts. When war breaks out, he is shaken from his sleep and runs for an air-raid shelter.

Director Wen Muye says he never stopped to think about how grand the film’s backdrop was.

“Although the backdrop may seem very large, for a specific little person – an ordinary person – this is a very concrete predicament that he has to face,” Wen tells Variety. “We try not to consider how grand it is; we only consider how great an impact it has on the character.”

Chinese audiences have followed that cook a long way. Since opening on Aug. 11, the film has grossed RMB2.29 billion ($342 million) in China, making it the third-highest-grossing Chinese film of 2026. It is Wen’s follow-up to “Dying to Survive” and “Nice View.”

The idea came from a news report and from the experiences of real Chinese cooks who run restaurants in the region.

“For me, Xu Fu is still an ordinary person, an ordinary chef,” Wen says. “What he goes through is in fact connected to the work he does as a chef, the food he makes, and his relationship with war. There is room there to express the relationship between war and peace.”

Shen is one of China’s biggest stars and is closely tied to comedy. Wen says that reputation was part of his thinking when he cast him in a war drama.

“But the fundamental premise was first and foremost that Shen Teng was very suitable for the role of Xu Fu. In my mind, Xu Fu is a middle-aged Northeastern chef with a sense of humor, and Shen Teng is comparatively very well suited to the role,” he says. “At the same time, he has the ability and talent for comedic performance, which naturally brings a certain sense of ease to some of the heavier themes.”

With restaurant manager Ma Junsheng (Jiang Qiming), Xu Fu turns the failing restaurant into a going concern. Once the fighting reaches the city, it becomes a shelter for people trapped by the war. Wen wanted to follow an ordinary cook through a conflict, and the restaurant came with the job.

“At first, it exists and prospers; later, it disappears from the protagonist’s view; and in the end, after the protagonist has grown old and returns to the Chinese restaurant, he sees that it is still standing there,” Wen says. “This is in fact a symbol of a certain kind of peace.”

For much of the story, Xu Fu looks out for himself and treats the war as someone else’s problem. That changes when Ma is killed rescuing children whom terrorists are forcing to become suicide bombers. Wen says he didn’t set out to ask what ordinary people owe one another.

“I think it is driven by human nature – whether Xu Fu or Ma Junsheng, these characters are driven by instinct,” he says.

To prepare, the team interviewed many people working in the region. They spoke to cooks, to workers from a wide range of trades and to locals who had lived through the war. Wen then tried to put himself in each character’s place at each moment.

“I never think about social issues in advance. What I actually want to tell is the story of specific people,” Wen says. “War and peace are certainly one theme of this film, but if you always write characters with that idea in mind, there will actually be problems.”

Omar Sherif plays Seif, a Kurdish Iraqi orphan who becomes Xu Fu’s apprentice. Aarif Lee makes a special appearance as Tony, a Chinese American private in the U.S. Army, and Sherif Sobhy plays Zaid, a civil servant and restaurant shareholder whom the war drives to seek revenge.

Wen wrote the screenplay with Lang Qunli and Zhong Wei, his co-writer on “Dying to Survive” and “Nice View.” Ning Hao is executive producer; Wen joined Ning’s Dirty Monkeys’ 72 Transformations Film Project in 2016. Wen studied under Tian Zhuangzhuang at the Beijing Film Academy, and “Dying to Survive” won him best new director at the 2018 Golden Horse Awards.

Well Go USA Entertainment releases the film in North America on Oct. 9.