Song at Midnight (also known as Singing at Midnight or literally Voice of Midnight) is a 1937

1937 in film

The year 1937 in film involved some significant events, including the Walt Disney production of the first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.- Events :*April 16 - Way Out West premieres in the US....

 film directed by Ma-Xu Weibang

Ma-Xu Weibang

Ma-Xu Weibang was a Chinese film director active in the mainland during the 1920s through 1940s, and later in Hong Kong, perhaps best known for his work in the horror genre, the most important unarguably being the Phantom of the Opera-inspired, Song at Midnight. Ma-Xu was also known for a few...

. Often referred to as the first Chinese horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

, Song at Midnight is a remake/adaptation of Gaston Leroux

Gaston Leroux

Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...

's Phantom of the Opera, though the film injects a significant political subplot involving the leftist revolutionary movement to the original story.

The film stars Gu Menghe, Zhou Wenzhu, and Jin Shan as the disfigured anti-hero Song Danping. Ma-Xu made one sequel to Song at Midnight in 1941 during the war

Second Sino-Japanese War

The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...

. Both films resurfaced in the West at the Udine Far East Film Festival in 1998. Since then, the film has been shown at various film festivals around the world, notably at the 62nd Venice International Film Festival

62nd Venice International Film Festival

The 62nd Venice International Film Festival opened on August 31, 2005 with Tsui Hark's Seven Swords and closed on September 10, 2005 with a screening of Peter Ho-sun Chan's musical Perhaps Love. The lineups were announced by the festival director Marco Müller on July 28, 2005 in Rome...

's "Secret History of Chinese Cinema" retrospective.

Reputation

Today the film is well regarded, and was named as one of the best 100 Chinese films by both the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2005

2005 in film

- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2005...

, and by Asia Weekly in 1999.

Song at Midnight has also been remade twice. The first remake, translated as The Mid-Nightmare is a two-parter by Hong Kong director, Yuan Qiuxia, released in 1962 (part I) and 1963 (part II). It stars Betty Loh Ti

Betty Loh Ti

Betty Loh Ti was a Chinese actress who was often described as the 'Chinese Classic Beauty'. In the 1960s, she was popular among both Chinese and Western filmgoers.- Biography :...

 and Lao Zhei. In 1995, Song at Midnight was remade yet again, this time as The Phantom Lover

The Phantom Lover

The Phantom Lover is a 1995 Hong Kong film starring Leslie Cheung and Jacqueline Wu. It was directed by Ronnie Yu and is a remake of the 1937 film Song at Midnight. The film itself is a loose adaptation of the classic Romeo and Juliet romance where love between two passionate lovers were...

by Ronny Yu

Ronny Yu

Ronny Yu Yan-Tai is a Hong Kong director, producer, and movie writer. Yu was born in Hong Kong and graduated from Ohio University. He has worked on both Hong Kong and American films.- Career :...

, with Leslie Cheung

Leslie Cheung

Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing , nicknamed elder brother , was a film actor and musician from Hong Kong. Cheung was considered as "one of the founding fathers of Cantopop", and "combining a hugely successful film and music career".In 2000, Cheung was named Asian Biggest Superstar by China Central...

 in the role of Song Danping.

DVD release

As part of their Chinese film retrospective, Cinema Epoch

Cinema Epoch

Cinema Epoch is an independent film distribution & production company based in the U.S. It was founded by distribution veteran and filmmaker Gregory Hatanaka. The company specializes in foreign, independent and cult cinema. The company's first release was the martial arts classic Master of the...

 released Song at Midnight on Region 0 DVD on May 8, 2007. The DVD includes subtitles in English.

An earlier DVD edition by the Guangzhou Beauty Culture Communication Co. Ltd was released on December 1, 2006 in the United States.

External links

• Song at Midnight at the Chinese Movie Database
• Song at Midnight at the UCSD: Chinese Cinema Web-based Learning Center