The Eight Hundred
 

Since the US has fought in nearly every war in modern history, there are tons of movies about each one. But just as I sometimes think about what kids in high school in other countries learn in their history classes vs. ours, here is a movie about the Japanese invasion of China specifically around one battle in Shanghai in 1937. It's a Chinese production so it's all in Mandarin with English subtitles. There's an ebb and flow to film, the fight scenes are intense and very well done. Overall a good movie.

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this is a super interesting movie because the Chinese soldiers are Kuomingtang, the Nationalist government that was later defeated by the Communists, but remains in power in Taiwan. I think it is very unusual for the Chinese censors to permit portraying Kuomingtang as heroes.

Trivia: my grandfather on mom’s side was a Senator in the Kuomingtang government. When the Communists took over, my mom’s family was evacuated to Taiwan in style, as part of the government relocation, taking their money and positions and titles. Granddad, who died when I was very little, remained a Senator for life in Taiwan. When he died, his second eldest son inherited the family property and money. Not his eldest son, who was an officer in the Kuomingtang army and stayed in China to fight the Communists, where he was killed in battle. That was around 1949 ish I think. About fifty years later, in the late 1990s I recall, our family was contacted by the Red Cross who said your brother is trying to reach you. The eldest son, my uncle, had actually been captured by the Communists in battle, and imprisoned in a reeducation camp for five decades. When he was very old, they decided he was no longer a threat and released him onto the streets. My family brought him to Taiwan but he couldn’t adapt. The world he knew was gone and he was too old to cope with the new world. They got him a little apartment in Beijing where he lived for a few more years until he died.

I wonder why the CCP allowed this to be produced and distributed.

My theory: China is stoking the nationalistic and militaristic fires in its population, because it perceives more conflict, including military conflict, ahead. The traditional stories of Mao’s army defeating the Kuomingtang government aren’t enough, because future military conflict will be against foreign countries. So they dust off the last time China fought a foreign power (ignore the skimishes with India, those aren’t impressive enough). The Japanese are a perfect villain for many reasons. They can gloss over the fact that these Chinese soldiers are actually the ones who fought the CCP a few years later. The government has such control over media, online communications, even private interactions, that they can suppress discussion of that inconvenient detail.

Thanks. Will have to see the film. My grandfather was a general in the KMG.

Very interesting story. Thanks for sharing it. 50 years in a re education camp sounds brutal

I have been doing some research on the war and it's very interesting. Thank God we rose to the challenge of the Japanese and defeated them in WWII.

33 Disturbing Photos Of The Second Sino-Japanese War That Reveal Why China Is World War II’s Forgotten Victim

A little more trivia: My father's side of the family had a very different path. My paternal grandfather was a peasant, went to school, became an electrical engineer, was sent to the US to study American power systems, returned to China and managed powerplants. My dad remembers hiding in ditches watching Japanese planes attacking my granddad's powerplant and fighting with American planes (must have been the Flying Tigers!). As the Japanese advanced in China, millions of Chinese fled the invasion. My grandmother shepherded their four little children as they escaped from city to city, following my grandfather who was sent by the Kuomingtang army to run powerplants in the cities that had not yet fallen. She came from a wealthy rural family, as a little girl her feet had been bound and her family owned their whole village. Now she was walking, carrying her youngest children, begging rides on trucks and sleeping in fields. Once they were strafed by aircraft in the field where they had spent the night. During the war she became very ill with tuberculosis and then breast cancer, but survived and kept her children safe and healthy. My grandfather had brought a bottle of medicine back from his trip to US (penicillin?) and it saved them many times. After the Japanese war, the civil war broke out. My family fled south and managed to get on a boat to Taiwan. My grandfather had been so impressed with America during his trip in the 1930s, he decided to bring his family here. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Chinese Exclusion Act limited the number of Chinese allowed to immigrate to the US, some years to only 100 or so. Through a friend in the US, my grandfather got one of those precious visas and came to NYC with his eldest son in 1948 or so. The other kids and my grandmother followed in 1949. His Chinese degree and experience weren't recognized here, so he got a job as a junior draftsman, went to college at night to earn an American degree, and became a senior engineer again. He moved from their Manhattan apartment to a big new ranch house with a riding mower in New Jersey, became a Chevy man (funny because my dad became a Ford man), a 76ers fan, and I'm grateful every day that he took the risks and initiative that he did.

Our grandfathers probably knew each other :-)