Cinema
Song at Midnight
夜半歌聲
Ma-Xu Weibang · 1937
Synopsis
In 1926, a troupe of actors comes to rehearse in an abandoned theatre. The leading man, Sun Xiao'ou, struggles with a song when a bodiless voice teaches it to him: it is that of Song Danping, a famous actor believed dead, once a revolutionary. Danping loved Li Xiaoxia, but the young woman's father opposed it, and his rival Tang Jun had him disfigured with acid. Danping passed himself off as dead; Xiaoxia lost her reason, and Sun agrees to present himself to her in the guise of the absent man.
Context
The film was released in February 1937, produced by Zhang Shankun's Xinhua, whose publicity claimed that it had frightened a child to death. Its three songs have words by Tian Han, then under house arrest, and music by Xian Xinghai. According to the Xinhua agency, it filled almost all its screenings for thirty-four days in Shanghai. It is regarded as the first sound and feature-length adaptation of Gaston Leroux's novel; a sequel followed in the early forties, and several remakes, including Ronny Yu's The Phantom Lover in 1995. The Festival des 3 Continents showed it in Nantes in 2013.
Who it is for
A sound film of nearly two hours, mixing horror, songs and propaganda; a version with English subtitles is online.
Prizes and reception
Often presented as the first Chinese horror film, it is among the hundred best Chinese films chosen by the Hong Kong Film Awards, in 2005.
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