Four weekends, one film, no challengers. Dirty Monkeys’ war comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in the Middle East held the top spot on the mainland Chinese chart for a fourth straight session, adding RMB82.6 million ($12.1 million) across Sept. 4-6 and pushing its cumulative gross to $305.6 million since its Aug. 11 nationwide release, per Artisan Gateway data cited by Variety.
That is a rare kind of run in a market that has spent 2026 struggling for consistency. The film is directed by Wen Muye, whose Dying to Survive remains one of the defining Chinese hits of the last decade, from a script co-written with Lang Qunli and Wei Zhong. Shen Teng stars as an indebted Chinese chef in the Middle East who converts his restaurant into a shelter for civilians and orphans as regional conflict breaks out, with Jiang Qiming, Aarif Rahman and Omar Sherif in support.
The hold is the story, not the opening
Plenty of Chinese titles open enormous and vanish inside ten days. What separates this one is the tail: nearly a month after release, it is still generating a double-digit-million weekend and still beating everything new. For anyone modelling Chinese theatrical performance, the multiple matters more than the debut — a $300 million-plus cume built over four weeks implies genuine word of mouth and repeat family attendance rather than a marketing-funded front-load.
Pair it with the other endurance story on the chart. Pearl Studio’s animated fantasy All Wishes Come True!, directed by Mu Zhengyang, was in its eighth weekend and still took $4.8 million, for a running total of $277.5 million since July 18. Two of the top four films on the board are month-plus holdovers. That is a supply signal as much as a demand one.
The rest of the chart
- V (Pearl River Film Group), Han Yan’s crime thriller with Tony Ka Fai Leung, Zhu Yilong, Tan Jianci and Kara Wai, held second with $7.9 million in weekend three for $75.4 million.
- The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s Imax-shot Homer adaptation for Universal, placed third in frame four with $5.5 million and $97.4 million cumulative — a solid but not spectacular Hollywood number in a market where imported titles have been squeezed for years.
- All Wishes Come True! fourth with $4.8 million.
- Fall 2: Deadpoint (Capstone Pictures) opened fifth with $3 million, or $3.2 million including previews since its Sept. 4 launch.
Why the topline still looks bad
Here is the number that should temper the celebration: total weekend box office across the mainland came in at $41.9 million, and 2026 year-to-date revenue sits at $4.21 billion — down 27.8% against the same point in 2025.
A single film at $305.6 million cannot offset a market contracting by more than a quarter. The 2025 comparison is unforgiving because of the historic scale of that year’s Lunar New Year slate, but the structural read is the same one Chinese exhibition has faced since 2023: the market is increasingly dependent on a very small number of breakout titles, with a thin mid-tier underneath. When one film is doing this much of the heavy lifting for four consecutive weekends, it is partly because there is little else in the lane.
What it means for planners and distributors
Three practical takeaways. First, Hollywood’s ceiling in China remains real — The Odyssey at $97.4 million after four frames is respectable, but it is a third of what the local leader has done in the same window. Build China into recoupment models as upside, not as a base case.
Second, local comedy with a social hook continues to be the most reliable genre in the market; Shen Teng’s box office track record is a distribution asset in itself.
Third, watch the holdovers. In a down market, the length of a run — not opening weekend — is the metric that predicts whether a slate can carry a quarter.
Source: Variety
