Le Chant de minuit

The literal translation of the title of this movie is: the Song at the Midnight.

This horror flick in the early Chinese movie industry made in the pre-revolutionary era China was better than the earlier silent horror flicks made in China in the 1920's, and like its predecessor, it is rather rare.

Like its predecessor, this Chinese horror flicks made a decade later than the silent horror flicks in the 1920's did not do well in the box office because when it was released, there was something much more horrible in real life: China was at War.

Song At Midnight (1937): Brief Review -

China's first horror-musical is truly an iconic film and a great love story. As the word is out there, this film is based on the famous "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux and also borrows some elements from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Since I have seen both of these movies (silent and talkie) and now this Chinese flick, I believe I am in a position to make some vivid statements that might not align with these myths. I'd like to disagree with the notion that this film is inspired by the aforementioned movies. "Song At Midnight" features the Phantom, but he is neither in love with the Prima Donna nor is he the villain of the story. He has a macabre face, but the character hardly resembles the plots of "Hunchback" or "Phantom." "Song At Midnight" is very original in its own right and also explores serious topics like revolution and its ideals in the horror-musical genre, something I don't think any films of this genre or sub-genre attempted at the time (or even today? Do we really have anything like this? If yes, let me know). So it's not just a great horror musical; it is also a great drama that was ahead of its time. And did I mention the classic tragedy and classic romance yet? Oh buddy, you are in for too much at once, especially from a Chinese film made in 1937. I was feeling exactly the same while watching the film-that it contained too much content for one movie, even for an American or German film, and then I had to remind myself that it was from China. Truly unbelievable! The footage and sound quality may be lacking, but one must consider the contemporary filmmaking in China, which was quite similar to that in India, and observe how they handled multiple genres like horror, romance, musical, and tragedy together. Absolutely top-class for its time and story-wise timeless even today. I don't think anyone can match it, even now. Multiple remakes exist for the same reason, but the OG remains untouched.

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest.

It would be nice to see Weibang Ma-Xu's other films. He was a busy director logging up credits till the sixties. This is his film which got most attention, though Chinese intellectuals were apparently dismissive of it. Now that the circulation of mainland DVDs has made the pre-WW2 Shanghai films accessible, SONG AT MIDNIGHT turns up in a battered but watchable copy and is unusually intriguing.

Even without sub-titles, the story can be followed. Viewers are helped by familiarity with the "Phantom of the Opera" origins and Ronny Yu's accomplished re-make which drew on another half century of technique and a bigger budget. You can also see the influence of the Lugosi Dracula here but this is a much better film.

The plot has a traveling operetta company arrive at the run down provincial theatre. Their juvenile is having problems but he is coached to triumph by a mysterious hooded figure, who a flash back reveals is a star disfigured by the local power cartel, when he romanced the daughter of an influential family. The young performer sings under the window of the phantom's old love now deranged, who takes him for her former lover. When his old nemesis menaces the ingénue of the company, the Phantom attacks him and is burned in a tower building by an angry mob. This is not a film that coasts on subtlety.

The film making, while not polished, gets by and is full of imaginative touches and striking images. The actor playing the phantom was thought of as one of the country's best at the time and it is interesting to see his work here.

This is certainly more entertaining than much of the more purposeful work that makes it into critical histories. Anyone with a serious interest in film should seek it out.

If I'm being truthful, the performances in this are not the main selling point. Some/many of them are from performers I'd assume all came from the Theater which is fine except for nearly every moment being played for people far in the cheap seats. Big isn't a negative for the film, and the main performance by the title character Song (a magnificent double meaning for that word in the title)rather that every voice is pitched for the utmost Melodrama - and what else is more melo/operatic than Phantom of the Opera itself. It's the ultimate Romantic Feel-Bad saga, and I wouldn't expect a good version of this to not have emotional punch.

What is important here and why I suspect this is still seen today and wound up on the 1001 Movies to See Before You Wind Up in the Rafters of a Theater Haunting the Love of Your Life is because Ma-Xu's direction is so over powering. This Song-Phantom has wretched make-up that the filmmakers show as this large mass of lumps and crevices (Wade Wilson would feel better about himself to a degree), and the imagery is loaded with portent and sadness and Gothic ennui. There have been more phenomenal (Phantom of the Paradise, more iconic (the 1925 Chaney one) and lesser (the 1943 Universal Studios) versions of the story, but this is the one where the fog and smoke is thick and plot matters less than feeling.

This is a world depicted as a scary place, overloaded with Eastern mysticism and all that "Your Spirit Isn't Gone From This Plane" portent, even before Song gets that acid thrown in his face but especially in the second half of the film, and the control over keeping us locked into a shot, how he has the actors move so in spaces, sometimes like in a trance, is terrific (look when the woman goes ever so gradually to the windows and sees the mysterious man in the back... whoa). The power of the film manages to come through a fair to middling DVD transfer; this seems like a prime title for a boutique company- if not Criterion, which would seem natural, than Cinematographe- to do a blu ray restoration.

The few reviews on IMDb and elsewhere for this early Chinese film "Song at Midnight" are overly generous methinks. It's true there's some haunting black-and-white imagery, but much of the style and some of the story elements are highly derivative of Universal's classic monster movies, particularly the 1925 "The Phantom of the Opera." The plot is meandering, with scenes that last far too long and with too many forlorn looks. The acting is atrocious, wavering between stilted artificiality, with actors seemingly unsure of what to even do with their hands and so just hold them up awkwardly or where to look and so gaze off at nothing, and outbursts of ridiculous histrionics whenever the story calls for displays of emotion. As most mention, this is a loose reworking of Gaston Leroux's novel "The Phantom of the Opera," but more so inspired by the 1925 Lon Chaney adaptation, as well as strangely anticipating some aspects of the inferior Universal remake in 1943. There's also a clumsy political message thrown in. Seemingly less remarked upon, if at all, is how elements from another French classic, "Cyrano de Bergerac," are melded into an already confused and unfocused narrative.

The similarities to the 1925 film are most apparent at the beginning and end: first, with the shadow shots of the Phantom with superimposed titles, just as in the prior version, except he's singing this time, and, later, with the mob chase. Here, the mob is inexplicable other than being derivative of the 1925 film, wherein the story actually built up to it. Similar to the later 1943 version, however, this Phantom is a musician (a singer instead of a violinist) who becomes disfigured by acid thrown in his face, unlike in the book. In this case, the incident initially leaves the Phantom, named Song Dangping here, with his face and hands wrapped in bandages, which ironically recalls the appearance of the Invisible Man in the 1933 film as played by Claude Rains, who would also go on to star in the 1943 "Phantom of the Opera." Like the 1943 film and most of the adaptations thereafter--worst of all the 2004 adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber integrated musical--this one is also bogged down by musical numbers that interrupt the main horror plot. (The one musical version I'd recommend is the loose reworking "Phantom of the Paradise" (1974).)

Otherwise, "Song at Midnight" is similar to other later romantic retellings of Leroux's story, which downplay or, as here, entirely erase the criminal misdeeds of the Phantom. Instead, a random villain is invented--not unlike the 1962 Hammer adaptation, where the villain was also a sexual deviant. Here, as we learn in an extended flashback, Dangping was a political revolutionary as well as a famous singer. Anyways, after the acid attack leaves him as perhaps the most grotesque Phantom I've seen on the screen, to give credit where it's due, Dangping enlists another singer as a surrogate for romancing his former lover, who misbelieves that Dangping is dead. Essentially, this is what Cyrano de Bergerac did, too, to hide his big nose. The Phantom even teaches the younger singer to sing to her.

Little of what make Leroux's story interesting is here. There's no Christine faced with the dilemma between her art, as represented by the Phantom, and a normal life, as embodied by Raoul. The only love triangle in the film at all is tacked on at the end and is more a threat of rape than an actual choice for the woman. "Faust," the original play-within-the-play, which reflected this outer Faustian bargain put to Christine is gone; here, exchanged for "Yellow River Love," a clunky political romance like the outer narrative and Dangping's "Red Blooded," which replaces the Phantom's opera "Don Juan Triumphant" from the book, I suppose. At least, the plays within still relate to the main outer play, though, unlike in the 1943 and other adaptations, even if it is for the clumsy political metaphor of light and darkness. Otherwise, the theatre here is considerably smaller than the Palais Garnier of Paris and, in general, architecture figures less prominently in this adaptation than in others or the book.

What the film does have are rooms full of cobwebs and stormy nights, for the sort of atmosphere one might expect from an old-dark-house horror mystery. There's even an old man with a limp who just seems to be in the film for the same reason. Oddly, in one sequence, the theatre is so cold that you can see the actors' breath. There's also some nice use of fog, moving camera shots and canted angles, but much of this style seems derivative of Hollywood horror output, and some of the canted angles, in particular, are employed for shots that don't seem to call for them. One of the more avante-garde camera tricks to affect the appearance of a room spinning also does no favors to the histrionics of the actress when she learns of the supposed death of Dangping--and just makes the scene rather laughable. Other shots and scenes are just too long; a half hour should've easily been cut from the film. The repetitive shots of the old man leading the theatrical troupe down a corridor, for instance, are especially needless. One can overlook the creaky soundtrack by contrast.

(Note: The Phantom's disfigurement is revealed to him and the spectator through a mirror.)