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(1937) Menghe Gu, Ping Hu, Shan Jim, Chau-shui Yee. An acting troupe is scheduled to come to a small Chinese town. A phantom-type character who inhabits a deserted theater sings his mournful song in the night. When the acting troupe arrives, they use the theater for their new opera production. The Phantom then exerts his strange influence over the lead singer. This Chinese version of The Phantom of the Opera varies a bit from the more traditional versions of the Gaston Leroux novel. Here the Phantom takes control over a male singer, not a female. He uses the singer to communicate with his lost love, who thinks him dead after a horrific incident involving acid many years earlier. The Phantom (once an acclaimed singer) seeks revenge against the owner of the theater, who was responsible for the incident that turned him into a horrid monster—the makeup for which is quite grisly. This is a long but engaging horror opus and a remarkable look at early Chinese cinema. In Japanese, subtitled in English. 35mm.
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