‘Once Upon in the Middle East’ Review: China’s Oscar Entry Is a Breakneck Blockbuster That Mixes Food Porn With Wartime Devastation

Not since Zhang Yimou’s 2002 wuxia spectacle “Hero” has China landed an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature — and this dry spell surely won’t be broken with this year’s bombastic submission “Once Upon a Time in the Middle East.” Like most of the country’s entries over the past decade, this blockbuster epic — a […] China's Oscar entry, Wen Muyue's 'Once Upon a Time in the Middle East,' is a bafflingly entertaining, politically reprehensible antiwar epic. Bafflingly entertaining and politically reprehensible, this antiwar epic follows a Chinese chef through a whirlwind of absurd and brutal events at the outbreak of the Iraq War.

Not since Zhang Yimou’s 2002 wuxia spectacle “Hero” has China landed an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature — and this dry spell surely won’t be broken with this year’s bombastic submission “Once Upon a Time in the Middle East.” Like most of the country’s entries over the past decade, this blockbuster epic — a summer box office hit at home — makes for an extravagant display of the strength of the nation’s commercial film industry. Strength, in the sense that no modest operation could conceivably pull off the technical wizardry and large-scale worldbuilding showcased here, where an entire city