Well Go USA brings China’s $318M kitchen-war hit Once Upon a Time in the Middle East to theaters Oct. 9

Well Go USA Entertainment will open Once Upon a Time in the Middle East (欢迎来龙餐馆) in U.S. and Canadian theaters on October 9, giving North America a subtitled run of one of China’s biggest summer titles.

The Allen, Texas distributor acquired the film in mid-September after it had already crossed more than $318 million at the Chinese box office. Wen Muye directs. Shen Teng, the country’s top-grossing comedy star, leads as a debt-burdened chef whose restaurant becomes a wartime refuge. Chinese audiences have the film around 8.7 on Douban.

The pitch

Shen Teng plays Xu Fu, a Shenyang cook who takes a head-chef post in a fictional early-2000s Middle Eastern city to support his family and clear debts. With manager Ma Junsheng, played by Jiang Qiming of The Long Season, he turns the struggling Dragon Restaurant into a thriving house. When war overtakes the city, the dining room becomes shelter for neighbors, soldiers, and displaced children.

The country is never named. Wen has said he wanted the story to feel wider than one invasion. The languages and textures still land close to Iraq-war memory: Mandarin, Arabic, and English share the kitchen, and so does the signage.

Egyptian actor Omar Sherif plays Seif, a Kurdish orphan who starts as a kitchen helper and becomes Xu Fu’s apprentice. Sherif Sobhy is Zaid, a local partner in the restaurant. Hong Kong’s Aarif Rahman (Li Zhiting) appears as Tony, a Chinese American private first class whose path crosses the dining room.

Runtime is 141 minutes. Languages are Mandarin, Arabic, and English, with English subtitles on the North American prints. Not Yet Rated. Domestic marketing briefly sold the food and humor harder than the war, and some Chinese parents walked into a heavier movie than they expected. Plan accordingly.

Why Well Go bought it

On paper, the package is straightforward. Wen’s Dying to Survive (2018) made him a Golden Horse Best New Director and a Golden Rooster Best Directorial Debut winner, then a mainland commercial force with Nice View and a My People, My Country segment. Ning Hao executive produces under Dirty Monkeys, the same shop behind that breakout. Zhong Wei, a Dying to Survive co-writer, returns on the script with Wen and Lang Qunli.

Shen Teng is the other half of the bet. His recent ledger includes Pegasus 3, still China’s biggest film of 2026 to date when Well Go announced the deal, plus Successor, Full River Red, and Hi, Mom. Domestic viewers treated this performance as a pivot: the same actor who pushed cumulative Chinese box office past RMB 40 billion spent a summer playing a petty, self-interested cook who cannot joke his way out of a war.

The subject is what makes the acquisition interesting beyond star math. Wen has said the idea started in 2017, while he was finishing Dying to Survive, after reading about Chinese migrants who ran restaurants through the 2003 Iraq invasion. Real Baghdad lives sit under the fiction, including Liu Lei and Shuai Xuejun’s China Dragon Restaurant in the Green Zone and Chen Xianzhong’s eatery that sheltered journalists and children. The film blends those accounts rather than biographing one man.

Most Chinese titles that travel as war movies hand the camera to soldiers, diplomats, or rescues. This one stays with kitchen workers who had no side in the fight and no clean exit. That is the angle Well Go is asking North American audiences to buy.

Production built a full-scale Bahata streetscape at Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis after Middle East location shooting proved impossible, with ruined-town work in Ningxia and select desert scenes in Egypt. The craft choice matches the theme: recreate a city so a Chinese crew can tell a civilian story Hollywood rarely centers.

The North American open

The film already opened in Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Japan across September. October 9 is Well Go’s U.S. and Canada chapter of that global plan.

Showtimes are still posting market by market. Start with Well Go, Cineplex, and your local listings the week of release. Pair it with Jiang Qiming’s other North American runway, Pengfei’s Take Off, if you are tracking how Chinese theatrical drama is finding English-subtitle rooms this fall.

Our take: Well Go is betting North American rooms will sit for a civilian war drama with China’s biggest comedy star in a serious register. Clear the Friday if that package is enough. Full review after the screens open.