Although cinemas are still only allowed to operate at 50% capacity to encourage social distancing, “The Eight Hundred” made $18.5 million on opening day Friday. Maoyan currently predicts a total gross of $286 million for the film.
“The film’s release coincides this year with an upsurge of people’s patriotic enthusiasm during the pandemic period,” a commentator wrote on Tencent News. “‘The Eight Hundred’ is the first new film to appear in cinemas this year, so the box office is exploding!” Director Guan Hu’s re-telling of the Chinese defense of a warehouse in 1930’s Shanghai against the encroaching Japanese army has had a long, slow route to theaters. The nationalistic title was initially set to hit theaters last summer, but saw its premiere yanked the night before its debut at the Shanghai International Film Festival, due to apparent censorship concerns that it wasn’t nationalistic enough. The version of the film now playing has been cut by 13 minutes from that original version.
Viewers have nonetheless responded mostly positively, given it strong ratings of 9.2 on both the Maoyan and Tao Piaopiao ticketing apps, but a lower 7.8 on the Douban app more popular with more urbane, cultured viewers.
Would like to see wellgousa release this in the US