Guan Hu (Mr. Six) directs the blockbuster historical war drama The Eight Hundred, which is set in Shanghai during the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War. In July 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded China, reaching Shanghai by August. After months of battle, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek decided to withdraw most troops from a part of Shanghai, but ordered that some soldiers stay behind to cover the withdrawal and make a last stand in a battle likened to Dunkirk and Alamo. From October 26 to November 1, some 400 soldiers from the 524th Regiment of the 88th Division of the National Revolutionary Army defended the divisional headquarters at Sihang Warehouse against a Japanese army that vastly outnumbered them. Their battle against the odds was watched by both Chinese and foreigners on the opposite banks of Shanghai's glitzy Foreign Concession area, which remained relatively untouched by war. For their heroic show of resistance, the soldiers are remembered in China as the "Eight Hundred Heroes."
Pulling in over three billion yuan at the box office, The Eight Hundred was China's biggest film of 2020, and also the year's highest-grossing film worldwide. The film gathers a staggering ensemble cast to play the soldiers including Huang Zhizhong, Oho Ou, Jiang Wu, Zhang Yi, Wang Qianyuan, Vision Wei, Zhang Junyi of YHBoys, Yu Haoming, Zheng Kai, Li Chen, Zhang Youhao, and Du Chun, who plays the unit leader Lieutenant Colonel Xie Junyuan. Huang Xiaoming, Tang Yixin, Yao Chen, Hou Yong, Ethan Ruan, Liang Jing and Liu Xiaoqing also appear in the war epic. |