Review | The Eight Hundred movie review: Chinese IMAX war epic a thrilling tale of courage and heroism

Guan Hu’s retelling of a pivotal event during the Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1937 is bombastic and melodramatic, but exciting and brilliantly shot too

Like Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, it is a story of heroism in defeat – in this case, of a small band of ill-equipped Nationalist soldiers defending a warehouse

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A still from The Eight Hundred (category IIB; Mandarin), directed by Guan Hu. Du Chun, Oho Ou, and Zhang Junyi star

Published: 4:22pm, 27 Oct 2020Updated: 4:27pm, 27 Oct 2020

3.5/5 stars

In 1937, at the height of the Battle of Shanghai, the defence of Sihang Warehouse would prove to be one of the most important conflicts of the second Sino-Japanese war.

Director Guan Hu’s epic The Eight Hundred, a patriotic spectacle that is already 2020’s biggest box office hit, and China’s first film shot entirely on IMAX cameras, reconstructs vividly the week-long stand-off that saw 452 young, ill-equipped soldiers from the National Revolutionary Army make a valiant last stand against the invading Japanese military.

The skirmish unfolded in plain view of Shanghai’s foreign concessions, attracting the attention of the international community and the world’s media. By holding off wave after wave of attacks, the 524th regiment bought time for other NRA forces to retreat safely. Like the evacuation of Dunkirk, or the Battle of the Alamo, the battle ended in a resounding defeat for the defenders, but helped turn the tide of public opinion in favour of the Chinese Nationalist forces.

As bombastic and melodramatic as one might expect it to be, The Eight Hundred is also relentlessly thrilling, and exquisitely photographed on huge, practical sets. The sheer scale of the production leaves little breathing space for nuanced character development, but, as was the case with Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk , individual stories merge into a tapestry of shared experiences and national sacrifice.

Du Chun stars as the inspiring commanding officer, while Oho Ou and Zhang Junyi share significant screen time. Tang Yixin takes the film’s only significant female role, but Jiang Wu and Wang Qianyuan, as a pair of weary yet humorous veterans, are the film’s most memorable characters.