With the box-office success of Chinese war epic ‘The Eight Hundred,’ the old building in Shanghai where the film takes place has become a hot tourist spot.  
 
The Sihang Warehouse, where the main battle in the movie took place decades ago, has been receiving thousands of visitors daily since the film opened on Friday, almost twice as much as usual.  
 
Due to the high visitor count, the museum has had to limit visitors to 2,500 a day as well as implement reservation in-advance on weekends.  
 
Based on the historic defense of Sihang Warehouse, the movie has not only entertained audiences with realistic battle scenes, but also inspired thousands to run to the museum to learn more about these heroes and their sacrifice.  
 
These 452 Chinese soldiers, who became to be known as the Eight Hundred Heroes since their commander did not want to reveal their true strength to the enemy, were ordered to resist Japanese forces to buy time for the army to retreat and gain international support by showing China's determination to fight during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45). Located along the Suzhou Creek, the Sihang Warehouse, used by four banks as a warehouse, was across from the foreign concessions in Shanghai. At the time, the Japanese didn't want to go to war with Europe or US, so they didn't dare call for naval artillery strikes on the area as that could have caused a diplomatic incident.  
 
The film currently has a 7.8/10 score Chinese media review platform Douban and has earned more than 1.1 billion yuan ($159005000) at the Chinese mainland box office as of Tuesday afternoon.    
 
 
Global Times