The Eight Hundred

Thrilling war drama with plenty of action and connections with the main characters

Did not know of this part of Chinese history so made the film more interesting.

This is a Remake about a historical event. It may be a bit hyped and exaggerated and has quite the nationalistic take (pride wise) to it - something US movies also like to do to the same degree. Hopefully you don't have an issue with that, otherwise you'd deprive yourself of quite the intense and harrowing movie! And visually ... I mean wow, just wow.

How it all was built, the amount of preproduction it took, the stunts and so many other things make me want to say "great job". The violence is quite vivid and there is a lot of blood and brutal depictions of injuries and death. Amongst all that there still is character development (and some cliche and over dramatized things too of course)! That is not an easy feat to achieve ... but the movie does it. And even with 2,5 hours (and an odd 15 minutes missing or so probably will be forever lost, since the director had to cut them to get a rating in China) the movie never feels like it is too long ... very well done indeed!

This movie creates a lot of emotion and makes you sympathize with the characters.

The Good: I think it's safe to say that the film's highlight is the expertly crafted and powerful action scenes. This movie is clearly trying to recall and homage Chinese war stories of old and it does a really good job of doing that, visually. The action scenes are fantastic and I was surprised as to how tasteful the blood and gore was here; I sorta went into this expecting a brutal ride.

Initially, I felt the film's lack of character development was a negative. On reflection, I think this might be a cultural bias on my part and also not entirely appropriate for the story. American war films tend to focus on individual(s) for storytelling and emotional purpose. I think this approach, focusing on a group of basically unremarkable people, is actually a really effective way of making this battle feel like...well, a battle in a larger conflict. That while this moment mattered, ultimately, the war was not won that day.

I also have to applaud the set and costume designers...WOW. The International Concession set is so immaculate and bursting with life, I felt transported into the past when watching those scenes. The contrast with the abandoned, decaying warehouse is truly striking.

The Bad: I'm a little conflicted as to whether or not to include this, but the dub of this movie is absolutely terrible. I felt like I was watching extended video game cut scenes; the voice actors almost never sound appropriate for what it happening on screen. Again, I don't know if this is fair or not, but the dubbing made what was supposed to be emotionally powerful into a farce.

However, this criticism will be universal, whether you're watching the English dub or Chinese original. This movie is as subtle as a brick through a window. I understand what this particular time in history means for Chinese people, but damn...is this as propagandistic as they come. It's sometimes hard to take seriously and yes, I acknowledge culture plays a part in this.

The Ugly: On that point, this movie's ra-ra patriotism may be a bit refreshing for audiences who have come to expect war films to be, by default, "anti-war." Surely this movie isn't pro-war, but it's realistic in that it acknowledges war is a part of the human story and sometimes, the unjust thing to do is to shy away.

It's 1937. Japanese forces have attacked the city of Shanghai. The foreign concessions become an island of civilization among the destruction of the city. Around 800 Chinese soldiers have fortified a warehouse across a canal from the concession area. They are mostly soldiers armed with the latest weapons from Nazi Germany. They are joined by some stragglers and a squad from the countryside. They hold out against overwhelming Japanese forces for months in front of an audience of international press and their fellow Chinese citizens.

First, the movie spends too much time showing scared and incompetent soldiers. Some of it is useful but it really makes it frustrating to root for the Chinese soldiers. The long-haired guy is really annoying. It may work if he's the only one but the movie seems to relish showing the Chinese soldiers as weak scared little boys. The balance is off. The real force consists of mostly well-trained troupes but the camera spends more time with the others who get collected. The flag section is a good high point except throwing that many bodies onto the flag is ridiculous. It's more effective to concentrate on one guy picking up the fallen flag and putting it back up. Finally, this uses too much slow motion especially in the last act. It could have more effective to let the brutal action overwhelm the senses. As a true war story, this is primed for a great telling but this is only partially good. Westerners may not like the portrayal of Nazis and I'm surprised that Communist China is willing to make Nationalist soldiers into heroes. Again, the Chinese soldier fighting with Nazi gear is going to be weird for a western audience. As a Chinese war movie, this is better than most. It looks great and it's compelling to watch.