The Eight Hundred

The Good: I think it's safe to say that the film's highlight is the expertly crafted and powerful action scenes. This movie is clearly trying to recall and homage Chinese war stories of old and it does a really good job of doing that, visually. The action scenes are fantastic and I was surprised as to how tasteful the blood and gore was here; I sorta went into this expecting a brutal ride.

Initially, I felt the film's lack of character development was a negative. On reflection, I think this might be a cultural bias on my part and also not entirely appropriate for the story. American war films tend to focus on individual(s) for storytelling and emotional purpose. I think this approach, focusing on a group of basically unremarkable people, is actually a really effective way of making this battle feel like...well, a battle in a larger conflict. That while this moment mattered, ultimately, the war was not won that day.

I also have to applaud the set and costume designers...WOW. The International Concession set is so immaculate and bursting with life, I felt transported into the past when watching those scenes. The contrast with the abandoned, decaying warehouse is truly striking.

The Bad: I'm a little conflicted as to whether or not to include this, but the dub of this movie is absolutely terrible. I felt like I was watching extended video game cut scenes; the voice actors almost never sound appropriate for what it happening on screen. Again, I don't know if this is fair or not, but the dubbing made what was supposed to be emotionally powerful into a farce.

However, this criticism will be universal, whether you're watching the English dub or Chinese original. This movie is as subtle as a brick through a window. I understand what this particular time in history means for Chinese people, but damn...is this as propagandistic as they come. It's sometimes hard to take seriously and yes, I acknowledge culture plays a part in this.

The Ugly: On that point, this movie's ra-ra patriotism may be a bit refreshing for audiences who have come to expect war films to be, by default, "anti-war." Surely this movie isn't pro-war, but it's realistic in that it acknowledges war is a part of the human story and sometimes, the unjust thing to do is to shy away.

This movie is internationally known as "The Eight Hundred". It is based on true events during the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, whereby the focus is put on the famous "Defense of the Sihang Warehouse".

The "Sihang Warehouse" is located directly next to the foreign concession of Shanghai. This means that all attacks by the Japanse army on the soldiers in the warehouse, are in direct view of all people watching from the concession. As such, many reports are available of the historic events surrounding this battle.

Since the movie often switches back and forth between different events, it is important to know how all events fit in the overall battle. It is therefore that - before watching this movie - I highly recommend you first read the Wikipedia article titled "Defense of the Shihang Warehouse". In my opinion, reading this Wikipedia article will not spoil the movie, but instead provide the necessary background for watching this movie. Amongst others, it explains why the chinese soldiers were dressed the same as german WW2 soldiers.

Due to the movie not having a main character, you as a viewer will have an additional challenge of understanding what's going on. During some events I had the idea someone was put center stage, all but to find out that he is not seen for the next 15 minutes or so... I think it would have been very beneficial if the movie would have for instance a voice-over - e.g. Someone who was there - whom explained what was going on.

One big plus of this movie are the extremely detailed scenes. It is just a 'feast for your eyes'. If you for instance pause the movie, you often will be able to discover details (in the background) which you wouldn't have seen otherwise. Overall, the result is a very convincing portrayal of Shanghai during WW2.

In coming to a conclusion, I think we have here a movie that misses some necessary ingredients to make the viewer fully understand what is going on. The director and writers were probably so accustomed to the historic events, that they assumed that everyone else would also be as aware as they are... Why on earth they did not chose for having a main character is beyond me. As such, this movie is often a challenge to watch. Especially the first 15 minutes, I personally was left in limbo of what exactly I was watching. Giving it a second try after reading up on Wikipedia helped me enormously.

Taking everything into account - including the fact that this movie learnt me quite some new and interesting things about WW2 - I decided to score this movie with 7.3/10. Resulting in an IMDb score of 7 stars, I think this movie could have easily gained 1 (or even 2) additional stars if more effort was put in guiding the viewer better in understanding the overall situation. I recommend to first read the Wikipedia article "Defense of the Sihang Warehouse"

The Eight Hundred was the biggest grossing film of 2020 , beating Tenet but it's not surprising when you think about it. It was released during the pandemic and China has a population of over two billion , so in theory they could beat Hollywood every year.

Having said all that , this is a much better film than Tenet anyway .

It's the story of a group of Chinese soldiers and draft dodgers , in 1937 who put up a four-day defence of a Shanghai warehouse complex just as Japanese forces are overwhelming China.

This film looks amazing. As war films go it's right up there and i was surprised to see it only cost only eighty Million dollars. Perhaps that is because they didn't spent so much of the budget on actors wages as Hollywood , would normally ?

I have to admit the logistics had me confused at times. I would have liked more of an explanation as to why one side of the river was so different to the other and why people of all nationalities were just watching the chaos go on .

The acting was really good and i like the fact that they were not afraid to kill off main characters.

It's biggest problem is it's too long . In fact it's that long the opening credits were still playing twenty minutes after the start of the film. I did think at one stage that i might have to watch it in two parts but thankfully i manages to see it through and in the long run , it was definitely worth it.

I'm sure the Chinese people will have loved this. It does feel a little flag waving at times , almost as if it's a propaganda movie but i can forgive director Hu Guan for that because he has produced a stunning piece of work.

This movie creates a lot of emotion and makes you sympathize with the characters.

The visuals of this film are artistically cinematic and very gritty. It's a beautiful picture with tons of on screen action. The director adds so many simultaneous events in each frame that it kept my eyes busy scanning the periphery to take it all in. This film has high budget written all over it. From the sets, customs, cgi, special effects and large cast it's very impressive. You can also see a lot of American and European cinematic influences in the film. Especially during the flag raising which was reminiscing of Iwo Jima flag raising. The gory firefights and sniper kills gets your heart running.

Where the film falls short are the many overdrawn patriotic speeches and at first they are cool but become long on the tooth in this 3+ hour film which actually felt like four hours or more. Many scenes don't add much to the story and I think distracts from the film. I think this film could use an editor to shorten the film a bit and clear up the story.