When it was released in Shanghai in February 1937, this Chinese blend of Phantom of the Operaand Frankenstein - billed as "the first Chinese horror movie" - thrilled audiences, gave rise to a hugely popular theme song, was banned to young children, and rocketed to fame a somewhat eccentric actor-director, Maxu Weibang. Seen now, it won't give anyone nightmares but is a wonderful antidote to the common perception of '30s Shanghai cinema as just melodramas about underprivileged people suffering at the hands of the bourgeoisie or Japanese.
Set in 1926, the film opens with a troupe of actors arriving at a spooky old theatre to put on a musical play, Love on the Yellow River. The building is "haunted" by the lonely figure of Song Danping, a once-famous actor who had acid thrown in his face when his lover's family opposed their affaire; he's waited years for
another actor to come by to perform his masterpiece, Hot Blood, and thus get his revenge on his persecutors.
The acting (very much in the style of silent cinema) is hammy and the soundtrack laden with everything from Mussorgsky's Night on a Bare Mountainto Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue; but the Gothic sets and photography are magnificent, revealing Maxu as a wild genius who peaked just before the Sino-Japanese War shattered China's film industry.
Derek Elley