Shares of Chinese entertainment companies surged on Monday after the producer of the World War II drama, The Eight Hundred, announced a new release date for the film, nearly 14 months after it was abruptly withdrawn. “August 21, see you at the theatre,” the official Weibo account of The Eight Hundred said in a social media post along with a new poster of the film on Sunday afternoon. Huayi Brothers surged 10 per cent to the top of its trading limit at 5.25 yuan, after the release date of the China-produced World War II epic was announced. Shares of other media companies rose in its wake, including Hong Kong-listed Maoyan Entertainment, which jumped 9.1 per cent to HK$14.12. Shenzhen-listed Beijing Jingxi Culture and Tourism, the producer of Wolf Warrior 2 , also shot up 10 per cent to 8.07 yuan. The World War II epic was scheduled for release after the film’s June 15 premiere last year at the Shanghai International Film Festival, but that was abruptly scrapped “due to the technical reasons”. Ten days later, the film’s official release, slated for July 5, was cancelled. “After consultation between the production team and other entities, The Eight Hundred will cancel its original July 5 premiere and temporarily vacate the summer release date window. The new release date will be announced at a later time,” the film’s official Weibo account said on June 25 last year. While there was no official reason for the film’s cancellation, it had been criticised by state-backed organisation Chinese Red Culture Research Association for highlighting how Nationalist forces countered Japanese aggressors . Touted as the Chinese Dunkirk, the movie is based on a chapter in the Battle of Shanghai in the second Sino-Japanese war, where around 400 Chinese soldiers defended the Sihang Warehouse in Shanghai against the invading Japanese army. The Eight Hundred is the first Chinese film shot entirely on Imax cameras. It took director Guan Hu 10 years to make, involving around 1,500 people with a production budget of over US$80 million. Due to a lacklustre box office, as movies including The Eight Hundred could not be released as scheduled, Huayi Brothers Media recorded a net loss of 3.97 billion yuan for 2019, widening from a net loss of 1.18 billion yuan in the previous year. The Chinese film industry has taken a huge hit from Covid-19, with cinemas gradually reopening on July 20 after being closed for more than six months. A week after opening, box office earnings reached about 109 million yuan (US$1.56 million) , according to a report by Maoyan Entertainment. However, that only amounted to around 10 per cent of box office earnings in the same week last summer, with screenings only amounting to around 30 per cent from a year earlier. “This shows that the film industry still has a lot of room for recovery,” said Maoyan in the report. “Cinema workers will need to continue to standardise prevention and control measures in order to give consumers a sense of security, so that a larger audience may return to the theatre.”