Eight Hundred Heroes

八百壮士

Taiwan, 1976, colour, 2.35:1, 127 mins.

Director: Ding Shanxi 丁善玺.

Rating: 6/10.

Despite its strident nationalism, this Sino-Japanese war film (based on a real event in Shanghai, 1937) wins on sheer energy and verve.

STORY

Shanghai, 13 Aug 1937. The Japanese start their attack on the non-foreign concession areas of Shanghai with a devastating bombing raid. During this, Girl Guide Yang Huimin (Lin Qingxia), a strong swimmer, dives into a river to rescue people. In the face of the Japanese advance, and fierce fighting in the northern suburb Zhabei, Xie Jinyuan (Ke Junxiong), a lieutenant colonel in the Nationalist army’s 88th Division, plans an undercover operation for dawn on 17 Aug, codenamed Operation Iron Fist 铁拳计划, to retrieve Japan’s invasion plans. For safety he sends his wife Ling Weicheng (Xu Feng) and two children south to Guangdong province, in the care of Wang Jie (Huang Jiada). The plans are successfully found but the Japanese continue to advance. Ling Weicheng and the children do not make it out of the region, ending up in a refugee camp in the British concession, along with many other civilians who have fled there. Despite her father (Ge Xiangting) warning about the dangers of becoming involved, Yang Huimin is helping the refugees; her decision is angrily defended by another Girl Guide, Li Cini (Zhang Aijia). By October the Chinese are finally losing the battle for Shanghai, and as the Nationalist army retreats west to Nanjing the decision is made to leave behind a regiment of the 88th Division – the 524th Regiment, under Xie Jinyuan – to hole up in the divisional headquarters in the abandoned Sihang (Four Banks) warehouse, in Zhabei district, on the north bank of Suzhou creek across from the British concession. The point is to demonstrate to the western powers the extent of both Japanese aggression and Chinese resistance. By 27 Oct all the troops are in Sihang warehouse, a sturdy building which they then fortify, subsequently repelling a Japanese attack. Curious, Girl Guide Yang Huimin persuades a British soldier to escort her across to the warehouse where she shouts questions about what they need. In order to confuse the Japanese, Yang Huimin is told that they number 800, whereas they are actually only 400-plus. Yang Huimin organises supplies, which she and others transport across that night under fire. The next day the Japanese launch a major attack, and Nationalist soldiers hurl themselves from the building carrying explosives. That night Yang Huimin is tasked with carrying a Nationalist flag across the river; she tells Xie Jinyuan she would like to stay, but he orders her to return the next day, taking soldiers’ leters with her. Next morning, on 29 Oct, the flag is raised on the warehouse roof, afer which Yang Huimin swims back to the south bank, where she is greeted as a heroine. Furious, the Japanese send planes to strafe the roof but are unable to destroy the flag. Following more battles, Xie Jinyuan is finally ordered on 30 Oct by Zhang Boting (Cao Jian), 88th Division chief of staff, to retreat from the warehouse, as the stand has already made its point. Xie Jinyuan is unwilling but is finally convinced on the phone by his wife. At 2 a.m. on 1 Nov he leads the 387 remaining men across the bridge, under enemy fire.

REVIEW

This is the second feature of the prolific [Taiwan director] Ding Shanxi 丁善玺 to have been shown outside the Chinese club circuit in Britain. In the spring of 1976 the Electric Cinema Club [a repertory house in north London] showed his 1974 portmanteau ghost thriller Blood Reincarnation 阴阳界; bouquets are now in order for the Covent Garden Cinema Club for placing Eight Hundred Heroes 八百壮士 in distribution and giving it a week’s run. The film was shot during the winter of 1975/76 and first released the following summer [with a re-release in the autumn]; its budget has been quoted as NT$30 million – a large figure by the standards of the Chinese industry, but money clearly spent with a will. First and foremost, Eight Hundred Heroes is a splendidly mounted and excitingly made war film, and can be enjoyed as such by general Western audiences with little or no knowledge of the historical events concerned. Secondly (and for the Taiwanese especially), it is a strident piece of Nationalist propaganda with a customarily virulent anti-Japanese bias; students of political history may also care to regard the Japanese as a metaphor for Mainland Communist China. Thirdly, it is a study of heroism – straightforward, uncluttered, and viewed through the filter of the Chinese family structure.

The period is roughly contemporary with that of Fist of Fury 精武门 (1972, dir. Luo Wei 罗维) – the second Li Xiaolong 李小龙 [Bruce Lee] film – that of Shanghai during the 1930s when the city was oppressed by Japanese influence. Eight Hundred Heroes is far more specific, however: a few months during the autumn of 1937 when a few hundred Chinese soldiers, in a last-ditch effort against the Japanese invasion, engaged in a suicidal defence of the abandoned Four Banks Warehouse 四行仓库 just across the river from the British and American concession areas. Echoes of The Alamo only go so far, however. After a few days the troops were recalled and, after some hesitation by the commander Xie Jinyuan, 358 reached safety in the British concession after a mad dash across the nearest bridge.

The film opens on 13 Aug 1937 (captions throughout the picture keep one informed of events), when Japanese planes wreak havoc bombing [the non-foreign concessions of] Shanghai and the surrounding districts. Chinese underground resistance fighters plan an operation for 17 Aug – Iron Fist – which misfires and there is mass evacuation of civilians to a Refugee Reception Centre in the British concession. In mid-October Chinese forces withdraw from Shanghai to Nanjing; the suicide mission is then hatched. The Japanese had given themselves three days to capture [the non-foreign concessions of] Shanghai but, due to the resistance, had been forced to extend this to three months, increasing their forces from 15,000 to 340,000. Food and supplies are smuggled to the warehouse with British aid, but eventually the Chinese are forced to make a dash for safety.

Ding, a thoroughly “professional” director adept at anything from comedy to horror to straight adventure (something like a Chinese J. Lee Thompson), directs with great verve and ingenious use of resources. The opening sequence of Japanese planes bombing the city is a fine example of well-integrated model-work and crowd scenes to produce big-budget effects on (by western standards) relatively low-budget resources. His camera is dynamic without ever falling prey to the Chinese tendency for visual hysterics: a thrilling lateral track during a Japanese bombing of some hospital quarters conveys physical excitement in the same way as the final life-or-death dash across the bridge – the latter a real tour-de-force of editing, music and visual display. Only in a few places (such as the crude speeded-up action during the fight at Bazi bridge in the northern suburb of Zhabei) does enthusiasm run riot over dramatic sense.

The film’s major failing is the absence of any attempt to sketch the political ramifications of the period, a particularly confused time when the Chinese were scarcely in control of their own destiny. Shanghai was policed and carved up by various foreign powers (like Beijing earlier), and most of this information is taken as read rather than enlarged upon. The British even come out of the film rather well (they withdrew their troops completely in 1940). The chief focus, however, is on the small band of Chinese soldiers, and their leader in particular. Xie’s family is briefly but movingly sketched: the performance of Xu Feng 徐枫 as his wife is another feather in this talented actress’ cap, especially for her handling of their brief reunion prior to the mission, when she kowtows in devotion to her husband’s cause. The cast of players is virtually a catalogue of the leading Mandarin actors and actresses of the Taiwan/Hong Kong industry: young superstars like Lin Qingxia 林青霞 [Brigitte Lin] and Zhang Aijia 张艾嘉 [Sylvia Chang] as Girl Guides who help organise aid and supplies; Ke Junxiong 柯俊雄 making the most of the role of Xie; and other stars like Qin Han 秦汉 (a favourite young matinee idol) reduced to walk-ons. In fact, despite its two-hour-plus running time, there is a definite feel to the film of being chippings from a much longer work: many scenes end abruptly and more time could profitably have been spent sketching the non-military roles (Zhang’s role is especially over-economical). Despite this, however, and despite the sometimes cloying nationalism (as strident in its own way as anything from the Mainland Chinese industry, although tempered by a greater humanity and sheer expertise in acting and directing), Eight Hundred Heroes wins on sheer energy and verve.

CREDITS

Presented by Central Motion Picture Corporation (TW). Produced by Central Motion Picture Corporation (TW).

Script: Ding Shanxi. Photography: Lin Wenjin. Editing: Wang Jinchen. Music: Huang Maoshan, Weng Qingxi. Music direction: Weng Qingxi. Art direction: Wang Zhonghe [Wang Tong]. Sound: Xin Jiangsheng. Action: Shan Mao.

Cast: Ke Junxiong (Xie Jinyuan, 524th Regiment lieutenant colonel), Lin Qingxia [Brigitte Lin] (Yang Huimin, Girl Guide), Xu Feng (Ling Weicheng, Xie Jinyuan’s wife), Zhang Aijia [Sylvia Chang] (Li Cini, Girl Guide), Jin Han (Shangguan Zhibiao, company commander), Zhang Yi (Yang Ruifu, 524th Regiment deputy head), Huang Jiada [Carter Wong] (Wang Jie), Yang Qun (Sun Yuanliang, 88th Division leader), Qin Han (Jin Jian), Zhang Chong (Huang Meixing), Jin Gang (Wang Yu), Chen Honglie (Japanese officer), Wen Jianglong (Liu Hongshen), You Tianlong (Cai Renjie), Feng Cuifan [Stanley Fung] (Gu Zhutong, Third Military Region commander), Tian Ye (Japanese officer who spots flag-raising), Lang Xiong (Matsue Iwane, Japanese commander), An Ping (Chinese guerrilla), Yu Yuan (Yamamoto), Tony Dyer (British officer), Cai Hong (Japanese officer), Ge Xiangting (Yang Huimin’s father), Cao Jian (Zhang Boting, 88th Division chief of staff), Cui Fusheng (Wang Xiaolai, Shanghai Chamber of Commerce president), Zhang Bingyu (Yang Huimin’s mother), Liu Shangjian (Zhou Tianmin), Shi Wenqing, Song Kangling (Girl Guide leaders), Guo Xinxin (Tang Huili, Girl Guide leader), Miao Tian (Tao Xingjun, sergeant), Feng Yi (Japanese officer), Xue Han (Lei Xiong), Hu Qi (Feng Shengfa), Chang Feng (Du Yuesheng, crimelord), Wang Yu (Fa), Ge Xiaobao (machine gunner), Shan Mao (traitor), Fang Mian (Yang Hu), Long Xiao (Taro), Pan Jieyi (old woman), Dai Liang, Zhou Shaojing, Kang Datong.

Release: Taiwan, 10 Jul 1976.

(Review section originally published in UK monthly films and filming, Feb 1978. Modern annotations in square brackets.)