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The Eight Hundred Movie Review

The Eight Hundred is a 2020 Chinese historical war film directed by Guan Hu. It’s technically strong, but otherwise not great.

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“I just don’t want people to suffer from this war anymore“

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The movie is about the Defense of Sihang Warehouse in 1937 Shanghai during the Battle of Shanghai and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese atrocities committed during this period obviously still scar the Chinese people as this movie portrays war in a brutal, horrendous fashion. Some scenes are very difficult to watch and the realism is evident in its every frame.

Some of the imagery is quite memorable and the picture operates incredibly well on all fronts, literally. Whether portraying air attacks or those on land, we get to see this war in its full capacity. The visuals here are quite impressive. It’s obvious from the first moment onward that the country has put an enormous amount of money and time and effort into this production.

Reportedly, they have been making it for ten years, and the magnitude here is tremendous. The film is epic in scale and length, the latter one not appealing to me personally, especially for such a slim storyline. The sound, the score and all the details really are meticulous. I just wish the story and the characters were as strong.

Because The Eight Hundred focused so extensively on the spectacle of it all, they forgot to imbue the movie with emotion. I simply did not care about any of this, particularly not the characters as their development here is terrible. The acting is okay, but none of the performers are memorable as the characters themselves are weak. The film has so many people, but refuses to focus on any of them properly, and that choice sunk it to the ground.

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‘Dunkirk’ instantly came to my mind while watching this Chinese epic as the two movies are very similar. They are technical wonders and are both spectacular, especially to watch in the theater, something that I did not do for any of them, but in every other area, they both stumbled and are undeservedly praised. I do realize why this movie is extremely popular in China, but it hardly qualifies as a universally appealing movie globally.