I can honestly say that I haven’t seen anything quite like Song at Midnight. I know in readings and class discussions it was been described as a “Chinese version of The Phantom of the Opera”, however I haven’t seen the original film, so I cannot vouch for its accuracy or deviance from its predecessor. In some ways I’m thankful for that, as I can now separate “the art from the artist” and look at this film as a true original unique and independent film.
I had a little trouble getting into the film while watching it but I am not sure the exact reason. Part of it has to do with the slow pace of the film and the melodic and soothing singing of our main character Song Danping, a shrouded and hidden figure in the night.
The audio was especially intriguing. I found the audio track especially chilling and anxiety inducing. I’m not sure if that’s due to the voice actors haunting voice, or if it’s due to the age of the film and its condition.
Lastly there was another sequence of images at the beginning that I had difficulty comprehending, I am not sure if some footage was lost, and or damage, but I was not able to understand the visual clues.
[Off topic]: I also wanted to mention that A Song at Midnight reminds me a lot of another Chinese film from 1961, “Red Detachment of Women”. This musical is similar to Song at Midnight in its political themes and revolutionary imagery. I’m familiar with this film very loosely. One of my favorite bands, Bikini Kill, uses a clip from this ballet in their most iconic and popular song “Rebel Girl”. (See below)
In our discussion, we talked a lot about the importance of cross cultural influence. When thinking about cross cultural influence, we decided that a country either steals/borrows a popular trope/character/story from another country was either to turn a some kind of profit/additional notoriety, or, to use it as a base, reworking its meaning, making a new version, or new stand alone idea entirely. In the case of Song at Midnight, my initial answer was to turn a profit, however, with its political importance and connotations, and its deviation from its source material, it’s a standalone piece, and deserves to be viewed as such, not a byproduct of the American(?) film.
This film (and the story itself) goes far beyond our expectations of what a politically charged musical can be. It does so by being a musical within a musical. In the film we are introduced to one of our main protagonists Sun Xiao’ou, a theatre performer. He is assigned a role in the production of “Romance of the Yellow River”, a fictional political musical of the same nature. This is how our main characters connect with each other and how our plot develops, Song Danping, a revolutionary fighter and actor, was known for his part in the same musical when he younger.
Floyd Kessler 