The film tells the story of eight criminals and a deserting Chinese officer in the communist Eighth Route Army caught in the midst of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

One and Eight constituted an early collaboration between the graduates of the 1982 class of the Beijing Film Academy, notably classmates Zhang Junzhao and Zhang Yimou.

Both Zhang Yimou and Zhang Junzhao were members of the "Fifth Generation", or the first major group of filmmakers to graduate after the end of the Cultural Revolution.

As such, One and Eight is often considered one of the first films to move towards the more artistic and experimental mentality that is the hallmark of Chinese cinema of the 1980s.

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