Song at Midnight (1937)

Original title

夜半歌声

Directed by

Ma-Xu Weibang

Genre

drama film, horror film, romance film

Country

Republic of China

Runtime

1h 53m

Rating

6.0 of 10 from 30 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A disfigured musician haunts an abandoned opera house, where a young actor and his love interest become entangled in his tragic past. The story also involves the secret activities of leftist revolutionaries in pre-war China.

melancholicatmospherictenseemotionalgothicdramaticromanticunsettling

What happens

Song at Midnight (simplified Chinese: 夜半歌声; traditional Chinese: 夜半歌聲; pinyin: Yèbàn gēshēng, also known as Midnight Song, Singing at Midnight or literally "Midnight Voice") is a 1937 Chinese film directed by Ma-Xu Weibang, a director best known for his work in the horror genre. Often referred to as the first Chinese horror film, or as the first horror-musical, Song at Midnight draws influence from the 1923 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as well as the 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) by Gaston Leroux and its 1925 film adaptation of the same name. Song at Midnight was released five months prior to the eruption of the Second Sino-Japanese War in China. The film's primary subplot concerns the activities of Chinese leftist revolutionaries, and did not easily evade the film censorship of Kuomintang, along with its serious punishment to films dealing with themes of horror, gods, spirits, or "superstition and heresy" at that time. With a passion to maintain his creation, and in order to successfully circumvent the censorship laws in China at the time, director Ma-Xu Weibang visited "Yiyong jun jinxing gu" (March of the Volunteers) writer Tian Han several times while writing the script. The pair met to ensure that the script would be approved under censorship. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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• Crossroads (1937)
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• New Women (1935)
• Plunder of Peach and Plum (1934)
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• Lianhua Symphony (1937)