Song at Midnight (1937) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by Paul Elliott ★★★ 2

  Directed by Ma-Xu Weibang, Song at Midnight is cited frequently as the first Chinese horror film, and it exhibits a dominant awareness of a variety of communicative cinematic techniques. The intricate lighting undoubtedly intensifies the characters within the movie, and the solemn mood artistically apprehends many distinctions from its contemporary counterparts in regards to the story, costumes and locations.

  It's a vague reworking of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera which incorporates some design components that promote patriotism and defiant tendencies. Infatuation with the initial wave of Hollywood monster movies are additionally scattered throughout, and the disfigurement of Song Danping (Jin Shan) is outstanding. This movie is one of the first representations of a cult film circulating from China and remains fascinating due to its visual appearance.

• Review by Corey ★★★½

  an excellent Phantom of the Opera adaptation that oozes with palpable atmosphere and the innate horror that stems from it, with prominent makeup and black and white photography to pack an eerie punch. Song at Midnight’s phantom captures such an emotive degree of trembling panic and desperation that one cannot be helped be moved despite familiarity, perhaps due to how beautiful the musical pieces translate, or just how stunning the foggy gothic ambiance comes across, no matter how low the film’s current quality unfortunately remains—which, coincidentally, is the only major shortcoming that bogs what beauty and poise boils beneath the damaged surface. performances are great, the pacing, though a bit slow in the first-half, is smooth, and all elements converge naturally on one of cinema’s most-known iterations of classic horror.

• Review by evilbjork ★★★½ 2

  Song at Midnight is an awesome adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera. It's genuinely scary at times because of the intense makeup and atmosphere. It's a shame that at the moment, the only version available is absolutely horrible quality. It's not easy to watch in its current state, but the movie is so impressive that it was still a great experience. This is one of the movies most immediately deserving of a restoration.

• Review by Wesley Stenzel ★★★½

  A welcome political spin injects new life into the Phantom of the Operanarrative. The music is suitably haunting, and the performances are all enjoyably over-the-top without sacrificing the emotional threads that propel the story.

• Review by Dr. Ethan Lyon ★★★

  Hooptober 7.0, pt.35- A Phantom is Stalking China

  14/6 Countries- USA, Italy, Japan, Canada, UK, Norway, Spain, Greece, Mexico, Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Russia, China
  10/6 Decades- 1980s, 1970s, 2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1950s, 1960s, 1920s, 1910s, 1930s

  1st Ma-Xu Weibang

  Never in my life did I think I'd wind up watching a horror-musical-propaganda hybrid, but here we are. Even though this film was produced before the founding of the PRC, it is very heavily influenced by Socialist Realism. Apparently, Weibang was very concerned that he would ever be able to make the film, so he stayed in close contact with various influential members of the Kuomintang to make sure that he could keep working.

  The basic plot takes its central…

• Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★ 3

  A sort of retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, it tells the story of an presumed actor who haunts a theater and the main star of a new play.

  Often cited as the first Chinese horror movie, you can catch some of the elements of the genre in the use of lighting and the disfigurement of our "phantom."

  The story has some nice ideas and when it sticks to the original book, its very good. Some of the new elements like the whole background with the landlord.

  Unfortunately the copy I had was pretty bad, and that's not all, the English subtitles were ATROCIOUS. Like the "phantom" is often referred as a "he," yet everything they mention his job…

• Review by SnarlingApollo ★★½

  HORRORx52 (2020)

  05. 1930s
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  You know what is a great way to establish a tragic character? To have them list their accomplishments as a revolutionary freedom fighter of course!

  Song at Midnight holds a certain status of historic relevance as the first known horror film to come out of China, The western influences are noticeable of course (Most notably The Phantom of the Opera) but it does have a certain, otherworldly feel to it.

  The story is quite simple at a first glance. A theater group stops by at a dusty old theater. A young male performer shows promise but is also held back by some glaring flaws. It is lucky for him that the caretaker of the theater…

• Review by Shakemeister ★★½

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  A rehashed formula of an age old horror musical classic, this takes a new spin on The Phantom of the Opera. In this version, although the Phantom is much more disturbing and vile than the original, you are supposed to sympathize for the Phantom and not be frightened away. This movie does a good job at that. I think that’s the most unique thing about it.

  Apparently the Phantom is also a Communist in this version…so dwell on that for a moment…

  Besides that, it seems to borrow straight from the original story and not add much new material to it, besides the obvious Communist leaning facelift. The acting and editing is somewhat boring…

• Review by Lizzy Deane ★★★★

  The morbidity and beauty of a godly sealer’s dark cathedral brimming with gold.

• Review by elly ｡◕ ᴗ ◕｡ ★★½ 2

  long

• Review by Reto Hochstrasser ★★★½

  A socialist phantom!
  I was pleasantly surprised by this first Chinese horror film. It worked surprisingly well, although it has some lengths and I've only seen it in terrible quality. The makeup is great, as is the final climax.

• Review by PUNQ ★★★

  A 'follow the bouncing ball' HORROR MOVIE!!! Double horror! Extremely haunting visuals and with songs.... as if it was a Bollywood movie! Talk about culture clash! The Chinese soundtrack didn't match the the creepy images and close to kills the scary atmosphere!

  
  But there is something about this movie that makes it amusing. Sometimes thrilling. This has the story of Phantom of the Opera, the atmosphere of Dracula and the ending of Frankenstein! This is a true piece of oddity!

  
  Is Song at Midnight the only real horror movie available from 1937-38? There might be others, but since horror films was pretty much banned in the western world by Nazis, Brits and Hays Code evangelists alike, one has to look to Asia to find anything vulgar. And this Chinese film is the only horror feature I've been able to find from that period.