The Eight Hundred

八佰

China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 147 mins.

Director: Guan Hu 管虎.

Rating: 9/10.

Visually and structurally audacious version of a famous event in wartime Shanghai is gripping throughout, and up there with the best of director Guan Hu’s films.

STORY

Shanghai, Oct 1937. Members of the Hubei Security Corps rush to the city on foot but find it already in ruins, with the Japanese now taking control. Chinese deserters are being shot and the Nationalist army is retreating westwards after more than two months trying to hold the city since the first Japanese attacks on 13 Aug. The international concessions are largely untouched by Japanese bombing, so as not to draw western countries into the conflict; meanwhile, foreign press report from the safety of the international concessions and official observers monitor events from a zeppelin above the city. As a show of defiance, and to get international opinion on China’s side, Sun Yuanliang, commander of the 88th Division, decides to leave behind a token force of a single regiment, the 524th, led by lieutenant-colonel Xie Jinyuan (Du Chun), to occupy the Sihang (Four Banks) warehouse on the north bank of Suzhou creek, in the hotly contested northern suburb of Zhabei. The soldiers all arrive at the warehouse by 26 Oct; last to arrive is Machine Gun Company, led by Lei Xiong (Zhang Cheng), which along the way has captured 16 stragglers/deserters, including 13-year-old Xiaohubei (Zhang Junyi), grizzled soldier Yangguai (Wang Qianyuan), crazed accountant Old Abacus (Zhang Yi), and soldier Lao Tie (Jiang Wu). Everyone is told in a speech by Xie Jinyuan that this will be their last stand against the hundreds of thousands of Japanese outside. Civilians in the city take refuge in the foreign concessions; no soldiers are allowed in. Directly opposite the warehouse, across the creek, Shanghai’s nightlife starts up as usual in the British concession. As the warehouse used to be used by four banks, its walls are over a metre thick; the troops reinforce the building, and meanwhile on an upper floor a group comes across a beautiful white horse that runs free. Day One. Civilians are still flooding into the concession controlled by the British army, and locals, including Danjiang University professor Zhang (Hou Yong), watch the fighting across the creek like a public spectacle. Japanese soldiers charge the warehouse and are caught in a trap; others throw gas canisters inside, which causes panic across the creek as well. Inside the warehouse the deserters are forced to shoot some Japanese prisoners. Later, some deserters find an underground river entrance and, while trying to escape, come across a Japanese suicide squad entering. They alert the soldiers inside and the Japanese are killed; the deserters are hailed as heroes by the spectators on the opposite bank but are forced to swim back to the warehouse, claiming they were just scouting. Day Two. Fang Xingwen (Xin Baiqing), a local journalist who’s been peddling information to the Japanese, briefs foreign journalists as well. Word spreads that the Japanese will take the warehouse in three hours. The Japanese launch attacks on the warehouse from the north and the west, and Chinese sacrifice themselves by jumping from the building with explosives to stop Japanese sappers from blowing open the west wall. The attack fails after three hours. A Chinese civilian, Daozi (Li Jiuxiao) sacrifices himself taking a telephone line across the bridge to the warehouse. Fang Xingwen arrives to shoot footage of the soldiers, accompanied by a female teacher with food. As night falls, civilians on the south bank demonstrate in support of the soldiers, catapulting food across the creek. A young woman, Yang Huimin (Tang Yixin), swims the creek with a national flag donated by casino owner Rong (Liu Xiaoqing). Xie Jinyuan decides to raise the flag on the roof the next morning as a show of defiance, even though it will provoke the Japanese. Day Three. Some 345 soldiers remain in the warehouse. As the flag is raised, Japanese planes strafe the rooftop, with much loss of life. That evening the troops are entertained by a rudimentary shadowplay in the warehouse. Day Four. Snow falls. A safe Red Cross zone is set up by the British army on their half of the bridge. Xie Jinyuan rides out on the white horse to parlay with Japanese colonel Konoe Isao (Nakaizumi Hideo), who offers him a last chance to surrender. Later, Xie Jinyuan receives orders to abandon the warehouse at midnight and cross the bridge to the British concession, which has agreed to take them in. They all bathe prior to the operation; some volunteer to stay behind to look after the wounded and cover the retreat.

REVIEW

It’s been more than a year’s wait, but The Eight Hundred 八佰 turns out to have been worth it. A visually and structurally audacious version of a legendary event during the Sino-Japanese war – in which a few hundred Chinese soldiers held out for four days in a warehouse as Shanghai fell in 1937 – the gripping ensemble drama is up there with the best work of writer-director Guan Hu 管虎 (Cow 斗牛, 2009; The Chef The Actor The Scoundrel 厨子戏子痞子, 2013; Mr. Six 老炮儿, 2015) in a notable career in film and TV that has only been spottily acknowledged outside his homeland. The first major new title to be released in the Mainland since cinemas started re-opening on 20 Jul, it’s so far taken a colossal RMB900 million in four days, including a week of previews. [Final tally was RMB3.11 billion.]

The original script, titled 八百壮士 (“Eight Hundred Heroes”) and attributed to Hu Kun 胡坤, was given the official go-ahead in 2013, with shooting to start in summer 2014 for release the following year. In the event, the film was shot over 230 days, between Sep 2017 and Apr 2018. It was originally meant to open the Shanghai Film Festival on 15 Jun 2019 and then go into nationwide release on 5 Jul (see poster, left). On 14 Jun the film was suddenly pulled from SIFF “for technical reasons”; and on 25 Jun its nationwide release was cancelled, at huge cost. Reportedly, the hooha – following the Cultural Revolution drama One Second 一秒钟, by Zhang Yimou 张艺谋, being pulled from Berlin’s competition in February 2019 at four days’ notice – was due to last-minute concerns by political tsars that the film over-glamourised the Nationalist army, especially in a year that marked the 70th anniversary of the PRC. The film itself was also expected to be a big summer hit, perhaps throwing several 70th-anni war dramas due later in the summer and autumn into the shade.

Whatever the case, The Eight Hundred now comes with detailed intertitles at the beginning and end, explaining that the so-called “Eight Hundred Heroes” event (the real number of soldiers was roughly half) was just one of many heroic actions, including those by many nameless people, that contributed to victory against Japan at huge cost to human life. The film is 13 minutes shorter than the length announced for its SIFF premiere, though, given the unreliability of pre-announced running times, it’s impossible to speculate what cutting, if any, has taken place, especially given the film’s almost impressionistic structure. The only jolting moment comes at the end, with a shot of the warehouse’s site in present-day, high-rise Shanghai. Sequences of modern China commonly end period Mainland films – to underline how far the country has come – but, whether subsequently added to the film or not, this one completely destroys the immersive experience of the previous two-and-a-half hours with all its period detail and atmosphere.

The first two movie versions were released less than a year after it. The Eight Hundred Heroes 八百壮士 (1938) was a 53-minute feature directed by Ying Yunwei 应云卫 (Plunder of Peach and Plum 桃李劫, 1934) and starring Yuan Muzhi 袁牧之 as the troops’ leader, Xie Jinyuan, and his actress wife Chen Bo’er 陈波儿 as Yang Huimin, the Girl Guide who patriotically swam across Suzhou creek to deliver a flag to the warehouse (see still, with Yuan, left, and Chen, centre). Eight Hundred Heroes 八百壮士 (1938) was a Hong Kong, Cantonese-dialect production directed by Lu Si 鲁司 and starring Kuang Shanxiao 邝山笑 and his actress wife Xiaoyanfei 小燕飞 (see left, below). However, the most famous by far is the star-heavy Taiwan spectacle Eight Hundred Heroes 八百壮士 (1976), by prolific journeyman writer-director Ding Shanxi 丁善玺. Made at a time when the island’s industry was profiting from its links with Hong Kong and from the Mainland’s isolation during the Cultural Revolution, it was one of many war dramas tub-thumping the Nationalist cause and was packed with cameos by half the industry. One of Ding’s better films (see Archive Review here), it was for years the movie version of the incident, especially given the Mainland industry’s subsequent avoidance of the event, in which the Red Army and the CPC had played no part. Ding had previously made the jingoistic war drama The Everlasting Glory 英烈千秋 (1974), which dealt with events a few years prior up north.

As well as in film, Guan has an equally distinguished career in TV drama, and his co-writers all have prior experience in the medium, with its large casts and multiple storylines: Ge Rui 葛瑞 (Guan’s TVD We Are the Best Ten Years 我们最美好的十年, 2016), Hu (period TVD Love Is a Blessed Bullet 爱是一颗幸福的子弹, 2007) and Huang Dongbin 黄东斌 (war TVD The Gunshots in Plain 平原枪声, 2010). They get around the central political problem by avoiding any historical set-up and focusing simply on the four-day siege of the warehouse, as a story of desperate and often chaotic heroism by Chinese people (mostly soldiers but also some civilians) against a foreign invader in the country’s (then) most famous city. It’s no more a strict documentary-style telling of the story than was Ding’s film – both note they are “based on a true event” – but includes the most famous moments: the delivery of a national flag by a Girl Guide, its provocative raising on the warehouse’s roof the following morning, suicide defences by the soldiers, and the final dash across the bridge to the safety of the British concession.

Guan & Co.’s most striking innovation – and an apt comment on the whole craziness of war – is to underline how events were played out in full view of civilians and foreign media in the international concessions on the south bank of Suzhou creek, where the city’s night life continued pretty much as normal. (In reality, the facing south bank wasn’t as glitzy and developed as portrayed, but the film-makers’ idea is still a brilliant one, and true enough in spirit.) Then wary of involving the foreign powers in its war against China, Japan had limited its attack to Shanghai’s suburbs, avoiding bombing the international concessions that made up the city’s heart. “Over there,” says an officer looking at all the neon and girly bars opposite, “is heaven. Here is hell.” It’s a theme that runs right through the film, with the “spectators” on the south bank watching the grim “entertainment” on the north bank, and the holed-up soldiers always aware that the eyes of the world are on them, only metres away. It’s to this irony, perhaps, that the film’s opening quote refers: “When I turn to dust, you will see my smile…” 待我成尘时，你将见我的微笑。。。

The parallel inclusion of spectators on the south bank also provides an opportunity for many lightning cameos: veteran actress Liu Xiaoqing 刘晓庆 as a casino owner, Yao Chen 姚晨 as pioneering left-wing feminist He Xiangning, actor Hou Yong 侯勇 as a university professor who watches the action through binoculars, Guan’s actress wife Liang Jing 梁静 as his naggy, majiang-playing Shanghai taitai, Ma Jingwu 马精武 as a theatre-troupe boss, and so on. Their growing emotional involvement in the spectacle across the river provides a neat commentary on the often chaotic heroism in the warehouse itself, from which various individuals gradually emerge. In a further departure from the uninflected heroism of Ding’s movie, Guan & Co. also include some deserters/stragglers who’ve been rounded up by troops on their way to the warehouse, and it’s often through their eyes that events unfold. Some of the strongest actors are cast in these parts: Zhang Yi 张译, unrecognisable as a half-crazed, bespectacled accountant; Jiang Wu 姜武 as a frightened old warrior nicknamed Pussy 瓜怂 by the others; and hatchet-faced Wang Qianyuan 王千源 as a tough-talking survivor. Even the soldiers’ famous commander, Xie Jinyuan, is a realist in the sympathetic performance by Du Chun 杜淳 – a far cry from the hard-jawed performance by late Taiwan actor Ke Junxiong 柯俊雄 in Ding’s film.

The way in which key characters in the warehouse gradually emerge from the mass of screaming, shouting soldiers – most dialogue is an ensemble roar – is one of the pleasures of the film. The warehouse becomes a world unto itself of brawling and bawling humanity, often fighting itself as much as the enemy – an irreal world into which Guan & Co. occasionally drop idealistic imagery (a white horse, elements of Chinese opera heroes) that enhance rather than jar the mood. Using IMAX cameras, and thankfully avoiding 3-D (whose Mainland boom is effectively over), the widescreen images, drained of bright primary colours, by ace Mainland d.p. Cao Yu 曹郁 (City of Life and Death 南京！南京！, 2009; Driverless 无人驾驶, 2010; Legend of the Demon Cat 妖猫传, 2017) are part and parcel of the irreality, along with the gritty, often very bloody, action staging by Australian ace Glenn Boswell (the Mad Max and Matrix films) and the Mainland’s Fu Xiaojie 傅小杰 (Guan’s Cow and The Chef The Actor The Scoundrel) which is all a long way from the 1970s-style, somersaulting stuntmen in Ding’s movie. Design and costuming for the south bank is acute, and packed with small details (such as a traitor strung from a lamppost) that are only glimpsed in passing. On the technical side, only the music is unremarkable.

Students of political fine points will notice how the flag-raising ceremony – every bit as iconic as the later Iwo Jima flag-raising was for Americans – is staged and cut without any close-ups of the (Nationalist) flag in full billow and with plentiful use of long shots, with the accent more on the heroic flag-raisers and surrounding action by Japanese planes than the cloth itself. In Ding’s movie this was, of course, a full-colour political highlight, complete with chorus.

CREDITS

Presented by Huayi Brothers Film (CN), Beijing Seventh Image Movie & Media (CN). Produced by Huayi Brothers Media (CN).

Script: Guan Hu, Ge Rui, Hu Kun, Huang Dongbin. Photography: Cao Yu. Editing: Tu Yiran, He Yongyi. Music: Andrew Kawczynski. Main theme: Rupert Gregson-Williams. Music direction: Yu Fei. Art direction: Lin Mu. Styling: Li Zhou. Sound: Fu Kang. Action design: Fu Xiaojie. War scenes design: Glenn Boswell. Visual effects: Tim Crosbie, Wu Yanran.

Cast: Wang Qianyuan (Yangguai), Zhang Yi (Lao Suanpan/Old Abacus), Jiang Wu (Lao Tie), Huang Zhizhong (Lao Hulu), Zhang Junyi (Xiaohubei), Ou Hao (Duan Wu), Du Chun (Xie Jinyuan, 524th Regiment lieutenant-colonel), Wei Chen (Zhu Shengzhong), Zhang Youhao (Qiyue), Tang Yixin (Yang Huimin), Li Jiuxiao (Daozi), Li Chen (Qi Jiaming), Liang Jing (professor’s wife), Hou Yong (Zhang, university professor), Xin Baiqing (Fang Xingwen, journalist), Yu Haoming (Shangguan Zhibiao), Liu Xiaoqing (Rong, casino owner), Yao Chen (He Xiangning), Zheng Kai (Chen Shusheng), Yu Ailei (Luo Yangchan), Huang Xiaoming (commissioner), Xu Jiawen (Eva), Zhang Cheng (Lei Xiong, Machine Gun Company commander), Ma Jingwu (theatre-troupe leader), Hu Xiaoguang (Hubei Security Corps leader), Lu Siyu (Yang Ruifu), Shao Laowu (Zhang Xiangfei), Bai En (Yang Deyu), Cao Lu (Jiang Jing, sergeant), Liu Yunlong (Lin Yang), Yang Haoyu (Tan Kai), Pang Guochang (Zhou Tianyu), Yang Jiahua (Liao Zhikai), Nakaizumi Hideo (Konoe Isao, Japanese colonel), Gao Shuang (Tang Maxin), Zheng Wei (Qiu), Gao Dongping (Lu, commissioner), Huang Miyi (Lu, actress), Cao Weiyu (Yu Hongjun), Song Yang (Zhang Boting), Xu Letong (soldier), Xu Xing (Shanghai wife), Ruan Jingtian (Jin Sijing), Du Zilan (Nationalist soldier), Liu Hangyu (Wang Qiang), Vincent Matile (French journalist), Samuel Mackey (British soldier; British citizen), David Semery (French journalist), Daniel Krauser (British army officer), Gianluca Zoppa, Lionel Roudaut, Diego Dati.

Release: China, 21 Aug 2020.