Eight Hundred Heroes

On 13th August 1937, the Japanese military launched its offense of Shanghai. After three months of fierce fighting, the Nationalist army decided to retreat to prepare for a long-term battle of resistance. Under the leadership of Colonel Xie Jinyuan (Yuan Muzi), 800 soldiers gave protection for the retreat and defended the Sihang Warehouse to the very end. Based on a chapter from the Battle of Shanghai, this war epic also includes the incident of the Girl Guide (Chen Boer) who bravely risked her life to deliver the Chinese flag, an act that shook the world. Despite being produced as a silent film due to production limitations, Eight Hundred Heroes is a spectacular and realistic reenactment of the epic battle, proving that wartime patriotic propaganda films can also have artistic and aesthetic merits. The print being used for the screening survired the war years thanks to Mr Wang Manchee, Daniel's valiant efforts to protect it during the war. In 1994, this priceless treasure was donated to the Film Archive by his daughter Ms Dolores Wang.

Date	Time	Venue
2/9/2016 (Fri)	7:30pm	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive
3/9/2016 (Sat)	7:30pm	Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive

The contents of the programme do not represent the views of the presenter. The presenter reserves the right to change the programme should unavoidable circumstances make it necessary.