"I love the way Nolan has resorted to minimalism in telling the stories," he says. "Without much blood and violence, it easily presented the tension and brutality of war."

Huang agrees. "Unlike most other war films, it doesn't draw a clear line between love and hate," she says. "It's more about showing the emotions and senses in the thick of an evacuation."

Their words echoed those by Nolan himself in August. "This story is about suspense. Suspense is a cinematic language where you can't take your eyes off the screen," he says.

"Time in any film is a very interesting tool for filmmakers to use," he says.

For viewers, his take on time and suspense might be less convincing without the ear-scratching and tension-building music produced by German composer Hans Zimmer.

"The soundtrack is the most significant source for an immersive experience," Huang says, highlighting the role of the sounds in intriguing the audience.

"Zimmer also resorted to minimalism for this film, which fits very well with the ambience that Nolan wanted to create," Shen says. "Even though the ever-rumbling background sounds distracted me from the plots a bit."

After all, apart from all the suspense and ambience, Dunkirk is a story "about communal heroism - about the cumulative effect of small acts of human heroism and what we can achieve together, rather than individually," Noland says.

That's part of why a lot of viewers are confident the film will continue to attract Chinese moviegoers, even though it doesn't directly relate to Chinese history and it is immersive yet unorthodox in a way.

"There are no boundaries for the appeal of this film," Huang says. "It allows us to look at warfare from a unique angle."

Others simply took it as a call for peace.

"Just take it as a anti-war story to follow, and you'll be touched as I was," says Mao Zhuxin, a viewer from southwest China's Chongqing.

"May peace prevail on earth." she says.

Xinhua