The Eight Hundred (Chinese: 八佰) is a 2020 Chinese historical war film directed by and co-written by Guan Hu, and starring Huang Zhizhong, Oho Ou, Jiang Wu, Zhang Yi, Wang Qianyuan, Du Chun, Vision Wei, Li Chen, Yu Haoming, Tang Yixin, and Zheng Kai. The film is about the Defense of Sihang Warehouse in 1937 Shanghai during the Battle of Shanghai and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Eight Hundred 2020
Originally scheduled for released in July 2019, the premiere and the release was moved to August 21, 2020 nationwide release.[3][4] The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing $461 million worldwide. It was the highest-grossing film of 2020,[5] marking the first time since 2007 that the top-grossing film of a given year earned less than $1 billion,[6] and the first time in history that the top-grossing film of a given year was not a Hollywood production.[7] The film’s box office record can be explained by its outstanding performance in China, where China’s relative success in containing the coronavirus during the COVID-19 pandemic allowed more theaters to remain open than in North America and Europe, which are major markets for Hollywood movies.
During the early days of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and on a greater scale World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Shanghai, which became known as The Battle of Shanghai. After holding back the Japanese for over 3 months, and suffering heavy losses, the Chinese army was forced to retreat due to the danger of being encircled. Lieutenant Colonel Xie Jinyuan of the 524th Regiment of the under-equipped 88th Division of the National Revolutionary Army, lead 452 young officers and soldiers to defend Sihang Warehouse against the 3rd Imperial Japanese Division consisting of around 20,000 troops on a heroic suicidal last stand against the Japanese under an order by Generalissimo of Nationalist China, Chiang Kai-shek. The decision was made to provide a morale boost to the Chinese people after the losses of Beijing and Shanghai, and help spur support from the Allies, who were in full view of the battle from the International Settlement in Shanghai just across the Suzhou Creek.