Search - Song at Midnight on DVD

Not better than the Chinese DVD editions

J. Teel | Az U.S.A. | 05/11/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I bought two diffrent prints from Chinese dealers of this classic and they both were the same beat up dark print that is being sold in this edition. This print also has the same picture framing problems that the Chinese prints had in the first few minutes. It seems to have been mastered with one of those Chinese VCD/DVD prints.

If you already have one of the Chinese prints don't buy this with the hope that you are getting a restored print of anysort. Of course if you don't have anyother prints of this film then you will want to buy this because this is a great motion picture loosely based on the Phantom of the Opera and was remade in 1995 as the Phantom Lover as well as a couple of other remakes. The film shot in 1937 looks a lot like the Universal Pictures horror movies of the era. The End seems to have been styled after Frankenstein(1931)

I did like the subtitles which were much better than on a Chinese edition I got that was translated by someone who did not seem to know English very well. The new subtitles tell alot about the Phantom's Leftist past.



"

Chinese version of "Phantom of theOpera"

B. Endo | Honolulu, HI USA | 01/28/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Since the silent days of cinema, China had been influenced by the films and the stories from the west.And when the talkies came along, Chinese film studios were there to put their own spin on a popular genre. In this case, "Song at Midnight" is the Chinese version of "Phantom of the Opera" set during World War II, with the Phantom in this case affiliated with the Kuomintang. Much care is put into the makeup department and the staging of the musical numbers. But the Chinese didn't limit themselves to a retelling of Gothic romance. There is action, intrigue, revenge - all the goodstuff that makes for a moody horror film. The quality of this film is average, since the negatives reportedly no longer exist. Still it is a work of cinematic art that rivals the horror films of the west."