Heroes and Other Men: Masculinity and Nationalism in The Eight Hundred

Abstract

Abstract The film The Eight Hundred deals with the Chinese resistance against invading Japanese troops during the early days of the Second Sino–Japanese War. Produced in the People’s Republic of China and released in 2020, it was a huge box office success that showcases the heroic resistance of a Republican National Revolutionary Army battalion during the Battle of Shanghai in 1937. While the Chinese nation faces Japan as its “other”, The Eight Hundred’s patriotic male heroes emerge as the antithesis of, not women and dehumanized Japanese soldiers, but unheroic Chinese men, whom they seek to “wake up” and inspire as role models. This article examines how The Eight Hundred constructs a concept of martial masculinity tied to nationalism in relation to other established Chinese concepts of masculinity.