1937. Just months after the fall of Shanghai to the Japanese, soldiers from the depleted 88th Division of the Chinese Nationalist Army are detailed to hold the Sihang Warehouse, a building co-owned by the city’s four major banks, as a way of garnering sympathy and support among the wider international community. But how long can they hold out?
Currently sitting as the second-highest-grossing film around the world in 2020 (just behind Bad Boys For Life), The Eight Hundred is filmmaking on the grandest scale. Guan Hu’s film is the first Chinese production to be shot completely with digital IMAX cameras and the director uses every inch of the frame to dramatise a rear-guard action by the Chinese Nationalist Army to defend a symbolically important warehouse from the invading Japanese troops. In essence, The Eight Hundred is as much a siege movie as a war movie, a plucky rag-tag band of 800 soldiers versus a huge, weaponised army, and it delivers brilliantly crafted if often relentless moviemaking.
The screenplay by Guan and Ge Rui charts the action over four days. Day one is a stunningly choreographed blitzkrieg of action captured by Guan’s sinewy camera moves, be it a mustard-gas frenzy (soldiers piss on towels and cover their mouths to stay safe) or a surprise attack from half-naked Japanese commandos who enter the warehouse through the sewers. Day two sees the ante upped as the Japanese, embarrassed by their failed first onslaught, pledge to take control of the warehouse in just three hours. The third day charts the heroic act of Yang Huimin (Tang Yixin), who wrapped the Chinese national flag around herself and swam across the river to deliver it to the beleaguered troops. What follows is a valiant attempt to raise the flag on the roof of the warehouse as a final act of defiance and patriotism. The final day begins as the end is nigh but spools back 14 hours to fill in the military machinations — offering a level-headed view of the Japanese army — that build up to the final showdown.
Review collect from EMPIRE edite pantho Haider chowdhury
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