Guan Hu’s The Eight Hundred is looking to finish selling its rights at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was already on the market at Berlin’s European Film Market in February. The project has sold its rights to countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the U.S., Malaysia, and South Korea. The film’s production team is hoping that The Eight Hundred matches the performance of China’s widely popular sci-fi film, The Wandering Earth, which generated $780 million at the global box office earlier this year.
The plot details the Battle of Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese war. It involved the National Revolutionary Army of China defending a warehouse from the Japanese army in Shanghai. The Japanese were ultimately able to occupy Shanghai using their air power and combat troops to their advantage. The number, eight hundred, in the film’s title refers to the fighters who confronted the Japanese while China’s main forces were fighting in the west. The film has been likened to Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk although the film’s production was already in progress when the film was released.
The cast features Ou Hao, Wang Qianyuan, Jiang Wu, Zhang Yi, Du Chun, Wei Chen, Tang Yixin, Li Chen, Liang Jing, Ethan Ruan, Liu Xiaoqing, Yao Chen, Zheng Kai, and Huang Xiaoming. It is reported that Italian tenor singer, Andrea Bocelli, will be involved with the film’s theme song.
The release date for the film in China is set for July 5th. The international territories that will be showing the film will screen it on or around the same time. This news was originally reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
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