Film Music Reporter

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli is providing the theme song for the upcoming Chinese war epic The Eight Hundred (Ba bai). The film is directed by Guan Hu (Mr. Six, Cow) and tells the story of a group of Chinese soldiers and draft dodgers in 1937 who put up a four-day defense of a Shanghai warehouse complex just as Japanese forces are overwhelming China. Andrew Kawczynski is scoring the film and previously announced composer Rupert Gregson-Williams (Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Hacksaw Ridge, The Crown) is writing the theme for the Huayi Bros. production, which marks the first Chinese feature to be shot with Imax digital cameras.Bocelli has recently also contributed an original song for Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. The Eight Hundred will be released in Chinese theaters on July 5 and will be distributed in the U.S. around the same time by CMC Pictures. (Variety)