By Dan Skip Allen

I’m rarely surprised by a movie like I was for “Once Upon A Time In The Middle East”, a Chinese language period piece film. It’s based on a story I wasn’t familiar with, but it emotionally had me wrecked at times, and other times, I laughed at what I was watching. There is so much going on that it’s going to be hard to talk about all of it. This was a long film that was a lot. I can see why China chose it as their best international feature film representative at next year’s Academy Awards. I’m sure when many others see it, they will agree with me. It’s that good of a movie that people should see.

Shifu Xu (Shen Teng) is a chef in China. He lives with his mother and daughter. He’s struggling and takes an offer to go to a Middle Eastern city to work at a Chinese restaurant.  He works with manager Ma Junsheng (Jiang Qiming) to turn around a good but not great restaurant. He fights to show the owner why his unique take on traditional Chinese food is why he was chosen for this job. He knows what he’s doing, and people flock to the restaurant in a Middle Eastern city. Not a hotbed for this kind of food. When an outbreak of war happens outside the restaurant, it turns this man’s life upside down. The city is torn asunder, and people are dying left and right. Survival is the first thing on their mind, but a lot of displaced children become their first thought. Especially after they become prisoners of war. Things become life or death for the kids, and these too men who mainly know cooking and restaurants, not gunfire and destruction.

This movie has a lot of twists and turns. With the war aspects, there are some issues that bring new characters into the overall film. The story has an Iraq war aspect to it. So those elements brought some disruption and chaos to the film. War in any form is not fun, so how these characters deal with this part of their own story is a key to their survival. Sometimes, a war zone can be the wild west, and the Middle East turned out to be that. These players are part of a bigger game, and it’s not easy for them to navigate this tumultuous time in history. With the chaos comes some wild scenarios of smuggling and so forth. This is just one part of this film that the director adds to this story. 

The mixture of Asian culture and Middle Eastern culture adds to the charm and enjoyment of this movie. The director, Wen Muye, brings these worlds together in a great way. Capturing multiple cultures within one story isn’t easy. Throw in the war part of the story, and you have a full course meal here. Subplots included in this movie’s length show how much is going on. You genuinely care about these characters and their plight. Each one of them has their own motivation to survive everything they’ve gone through throughout this film. I was exhausted at times while watching this movie because I was like, how much do these people have to endure. It’s crazy how much the script puts into this film. 

One of the key parts of this movie is the food and cooking said food. From the very beginning of this film, the director glamorizes the food and accentuates the way the food looks within the context of the narrative. The cooking scenes are done in a fast-paced way. When the story calls for it. I love Chinese food, and I eat it at least once a week, but the food looks absolutely gorgeous to look at whenever it pops up on screen. Even soup or bread looks very appetizing when they are given to people. The director made sure the food was going to look great and it’s key to the overall plot of the film. It had to be a key to whether this movie would work or not. It’s at the forefront of my enjoyment of this period piece film. 

With foreign films, it’s not obvious who the actors are as far as popularity for American viewers like me. The lead Teng in this film had me entertained throughout its 2 hour 20 minute runtime. He kept my interest throughout all of the ups and downs the film gives the audience to watch. With any movie, you have to have a lead who socks you into their story. I was instantly hooked on him from the very beginning of the film. His journey was what kept me watching. He was a very engaging character to follow along with. I genuinely cared about him and the things he cared about within the context of the story. That’s not easy all the time with protagonists. Sometimes, there’s a lull in the narrative. With this character, there wasn’t a moment where I didn’t want to see what he was doing. That’s good acting and writing as far as the development of this character goes.

There is a lot to talk about regarding “Once Upon A Time In The Middle East.” I touched on a few of the things I liked about this long movie. My overall consensus is that it’s worth seeing because of the story, which is very important to the overall film. The acting from the main character Teng. The look of the movie was gorgeous, which also translates to the food. How the food was prepared and made were some of the best scenes for me in this movie. I was starving after watching all of the beautiful food being made and prepared in the film. The key to the success of this film is its narrative and main plot. Will audiences care about this story? That’s the big question. I hope they do. War is a senseless business sometimes, and we’re living in an era of that even though this was a period piece set in the 2000s. I hope this film finds its audiences because it deserves it. I loved it.

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 stars