What does a hit film about the Iraq war say about Chinese views of the world?

What it is about

Who published it, and when

How it spread - 3 original reports

1. Tue, 18 August 2026

   1 report
   • Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)11:55first to report
     Kinodrama aus China: Peking tischt Hollywood Antikriegsfilm auf

     Ein chinesisches Leinwanddrama schlägt Gewinn aus dem Versagen der USA im Nahen Osten. Das Propagandawerk ist ein Megaerfolg.

2. Wed, 19 August 2026

   1 report
   • South China Morning Post01:00
     What does a hit film about the Iraq war say about Chinese views of the world?

     A new film telling the story of the Iraq war through Chinese eyes marks the latest in a series of soft power initiatives designed to get Beijing’s message across to the wider world. Although Once Upon a Time in the Middle East does not explicitly state the name of the country in question, it is set in the 2000s and features an invasion by American troops. The film’s central character, a Chinese chef named Xu Fu who is working off his debts at the time the war starts, turns his modest...

3. Fri, 28 August 2026

   1 report
   • South China Morning Post01:30
     A Chinese cook in the Middle East serves up a very different anti-war film

     This summer, Chinese anti-war film Once Upon a Time in the Middle East has dominated the mainland box office. The film implicitly answers the question: what happens when a story about international conflict is told, not through the sights of an assault rifle, but through a gentler lens? It offers a fundamental restructuring of cinematic narrative paradigms, one that challenges decades of Hollywood inertia. For nearly a century, mainstream international anti-war cinema has been heavily...