100,000 m³! They built an entire city in Qingdao—just for a movie!

On August 11,Welcome to Dragon Restaurant, directed by Wen Muye and headlined by Shen Teng, hit theaters across China. With its touching plot and remarkably authentic Middle Eastern–style restaurant and streets, the film has drawn widespread acclaim—and many moviegoers assumed it was filmed abroad. In reality, however, the key scenes, including the "Dragon Restaurant" and its "Middle Eastern town" setting, were built not overseas but at Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis in the West Coast New Area of Qingdao, Shandong. Prior to the start of production in 2024, the crew worked closely with the studio's team on every detail—the restaurant interior and street layouts to building scale, blast safety, and camera movement. After six months of careful planning and construction, they completed the core sets at full 1:1 scale within the studio complex.