From gunfire to the kitchen: New narrative of war in Chinese cinema

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The Economist coined "dragon-restaurant diplomacy" in its recently published commentary on a Chinese film titled Once Upon a Time in the Middle East. The long-established British publication first mocked the film, suggesting that it was unlikely to win an Oscar because of its "outlandish plot" and "cartoonish characters." Yet, it then encouraged audiences outside China to watch it, arguing that the film presents an unfamiliar perspective that differs from traditional Western narratives.

This contradiction offers a useful entry point for examining the film. A Chinese movie that earned more than 200 million yuan ($29.8 million) at the box office on its opening day and attracted more than 5.7 million viewers has been interpreted by a leading Western media outlet as a metaphor for diplomacy. That alone suggests that Chinese cinema is no longer merely an object of observation, but has entered the arena of global competition over narratives.

When a major Western media outlet interprets "eating well" and "raising children well" as a diplomatic posture, what it ultimately reveals is a blind spot in its own narrative framework. In the familiar grammar of Western war stories, generals, weapons and victory are considered worthy of serious attention, while a kitchen, a ledger and a pot of hot food seem to offer little of political significance. Yet it is precisely these everyday experiences that expose the limitations of conventional Western narratives of war.

From 'winning the war' to 'keeping life going'

Once Upon a Time in the Middle East is set against the backdrop of conflict in the Middle East at the beginning of the 21st century. The Chinese chef Xu Fu travels abroad to repay his debts and runs the Dragon Restaurant with Ma Junsheng. At first, they simply want to make money, pay off their debts, and get on with their lives. But when war suddenly arrives, they are forced into a disaster far beyond their personal ability to control.

Unlike Hollywood blockbusters, the film does not turn Xu into an all-powerful hero, nor does it have him pick up a weapon and alter the course of the war. Instead, his most important identity remains that of a cook: Amid gunfire and fear, he does whatever he can to ensure people still have a hot meal. This is precisely what makes Once Upon a Time in the Middle East so meaningful. Rather than explaining peace through grand slogans, the film starts from the most familiar and ordinary aspects of Chinese life and answers why peace matters.

For decades, Hollywood has dominated the world's visual imagination and emotional understanding of war. Generals devise strategies, soldiers charge into battle, terrorists are portrayed as faceless threats, refugees wait to be rescued and reconciliation often depends on the awakening or sacrifice of an individual hero.

This narrative grammar has become so established that war films from other countries either lose their own identity by imitating it or remain overshadowed by it even when attempting to challenge it. These films typically approach history through the battlefield: Generals, soldiers, weapons, strategies and victory form the center of the narrative.

Once Upon a Time in the Middle East, however, chooses a restaurant as its window onto war. There is no headquarters or command center, no grand strategic map, but only a stove, cooking utensils, a ledger, ingredients, and people waiting for a meal. War is not understood through military meetings, but through power cuts, food shortages, rising prices, flight, disappearance and the hungry eyes of children.

The Dragon Restaurant's kitchen stands in stark contrast to the fighting outside. Ingredients stir in the pan while smoke and gunfire fill the streets; the kitchen focuses on controlling heat while the battlefield calculates firepower. The chef struggles to preserve the taste of every dish, while war strips ordinary life of its order. The more tangible the aroma of food becomes, the more sharply it exposes war's absurdity and cruelty.

The film deliberately shifts the camera slightly away from the center of the battlefield: It does not film the general, but the chef; it does not ask who won the war, but whether dinner can still be served.

This choice is itself a contest over narrative power. It represents an increasingly conscious effort by Chinese cinema to establish its own voice within the global cultural landscape. Rather than simply telling "Chinese stories" within frameworks established by the West, it attempts to redefine the very meaning of a "war story" through a Chinese set of values.

The film does not give the protagonist a mission to save the world. Xu's first instinct is always to survive, keep the restaurant running and earn enough money to get by. It is precisely this starting point of "not wanting to be a hero" that sets the film apart from Hollywood-style individual heroism.

The underlying logic of many Hollywood war films is that great individuals change history through great actions. Once Upon a Time in the Middle East offers a more modest, and perhaps more distinctly Eastern, vision: History is too vast to be repaired from a single kitchen, but a kitchen can still protect a small corner of humanity from being crushed by history.

The film's most powerful image is not an explosion, but a child once defined by war who eventually holds a spoon rather than a gun. This is not merely a visual spectacle; it is a declaration of narrative position – Chinese cinema refuses to reduce war to a dramatic confrontation between good and evil. Instead, it focuses on ordinary people crushed by grand historical narratives. This concern for human beings transcends nationality, race, and ideology, reaching the most fundamental level of human existence.

Peace means more than 'no war'

This difference is not merely a matter of filmmaking technique. It reflects a bigger difference in civilizational outlook. Anti-war expression in Hollywood often relies on speeches, sacrifice, and moral judgment, with emotional climaxes built around the completion of an individual's heroic journey. The Chinese approach to anti-war storytelling, by contrast, begins with an old saying: "Food is the first necessity of people."

The film's real question is not the abstract proposition of whether people have the right to live, but whether they can still sit around a table and eat together, feed their children and make plans for tomorrow.

When a bomb falls, military terminology can describe its explosive yield and accuracy. But for the people beneath it, the consequences are much simpler: No dinner, no home and no tomorrow. This narrative approach, rooted in concrete experiences of everyday life, is precisely what is often missing from the Hollywood grammar of war. It is also the distinctive dimension that Chinese cinema can contribute to global war narratives. It turns peace from a political concept into a condition of everyday life and transforms opposition to war from a moral posture into an everyday practice. That in itself is a highly distinctive form of cultural expression.

Chinese people often understand peace not as an abstract diplomatic term, but as something embedded in everyday life. When parents tell their children to "eat well," they are expressing care. When family members ask, "When are you coming home?" they are seeking reassurance that their loved ones are safe. People work hard, prepare for the new year, build homes and raise children because they believe tomorrow is still worth looking forward to.

In this sense, the film's message to "eat well" is both a familiar Chinese expression of love and a simple rejection of war. It does not seek to overpower others through rhetoric, nor does it rush to place itself on a morally superior pedestal.

This vision of peace differs from "fighting violence with violence." The latter often assumes that problems can be solved by defeating an enemy, destroying targets, and establishing a new balance of power. But Once Upon a Time in the Middle East presents another reality: Military force may quickly change the flags flying over a street, but it cannot automatically heal people's trauma; it can destroy a city, but it cannot create trust; it can overthrow a government, but it does not necessarily bring ordinary people security and dignity.

The film does not shy away from the complexity of war, nor does it reduce different sides to simplistic images of good and evil. It shows that various forces may act in the name of justice, while those who ultimately bear the consequences are often ordinary people who had no say in the decision to wage war.

In doing so, the film's anti-war message goes beyond emotional condemnation and touches on the logic of war itself: When a small number of people can decide whether to go to war on behalf of the majority, ordinary lives are reduced to calculable costs to be sacrificed.

Food and gunfire

Commentary on the film often refers to the contrast between "food and gunfire," but this contrast is more than a matter of visual style. Food symbolizes production, sharing and continuity, while gunfire represents destruction, possession and disruption. Cooking requires time and patience, as well as the belief that someone will return for the next meal. War, by contrast, demands rapid obedience, rapid judgment, and the rapid destruction of an enemy. The conflict between the two reflects a clash between two different ways of understanding the world.

The significance of Once Upon a Time in the Middle East extends far beyond the film itself. It represents an attempt by Chinese cinema to establish its own international narrative grammar: Rather than beginning with geopolitics, it starts with debt, ingredients, and an iron wok; rather than assuming the position of a "liberator," it places a chef who simply wants to repay his debts at the center of the story; rather than delivering an ideological conclusion, it leaves the audience with an extraordinarily small question: "Have you eaten?"

Before peace becomes a treaty or a diplomatic communique, it first means someone can cook, someone can eat and someone can put a child to bed safely without listening to gunfire. By anchoring politics in everyday life, this narrative strategy both complements Hollywood's grand narratives and enriches the language of global war cinema.

The Economist may have intended "dragon-restaurant diplomacy" to capture a particular form of Chinese influence. Yet, the term is worth discussing precisely because it touches on a deeper question: Must the international order still be understood only through aircraft carriers, sanctions and moral lectures?

If a restaurant, a pot of hot food and a table around which people can sit together can also offer a way of understanding peace, then Chinese cinema is providing more than a new narrative of war. It is offering another way of interpreting the world.

Perhaps this is the most valuable starting point for Chinese cinema as it reaches a global audience: Not to replace anyone, but to allow the world to hear another voice and see another possibility.

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