The Chinese war comedy “Once Upon a Time in the Middle East” kept its grip on the mainland box office over the August 21-23 weekend, fending off the debut of a new crime thriller as it closed in on a quarter-billion dollars in domestic ticket sales.
Dirty Monkeys’ film, directed by Wen Muye of “Dying to Survive” fame, brought in RMB298.8 million, or $43.9 million, in its second weekend, according to data from Artisan Gateway. The haul lifted its cumulative total to $232.2 million since opening nationwide on August 11. Shen Teng stars as a debt-ridden Chinese chef who relocates abroad to run a restaurant, only to watch it become a lifeline for civilians and children once fighting erupts in the region. Jiang Qiming, Aarif Rahman and Omar Sherif round out the cast.
Pearl River Film Group’s “V” opened in second place, taking in $18.9 million over its first three days, boosted by early screenings that began ahead of its official rollout. Director Han Yan built his career on titles like “Go Away Mr. Tumor” and “A Little Red Flower” before turning to the police-and-gangster genre for the first time with this release.
The two films anchored a weekend that generated $103.1 million nationwide. China’s box office for the year now stands at roughly $4 billion, still down 28.6 percent from the same stretch in 2025, a gap partly explained by the outsized run of “Ne Zha 2” during last year’s Lunar New Year season.
“Once Upon a Time in the Middle East” has emerged as one of the standout domestic hits of the summer, drawing comparisons for its unconventional approach to war storytelling by centering a cook rather than soldiers or generals. Industry surveys have rated it among the best-reviewed Chinese films of the season, and its production team has said an international rollout will begin in September. Its box office run has also outpaced fellow summer entries such as Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” which opened the same week Wen’s film hit theaters and has since settled into a steady but secondary position on the domestic chart.
