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Song Dangping. Song Dangping was created by the Chinese author Ma Xu Weibang and appeared in the film Ye Ban Ge Sheng (1937).

Song Dangping is a maimed villain based on the Phantom of the Opera. Once upon a time Song Dangping was a famous theater performer. But Song wooed the wrong woman, the daughter of a powerful local family, and the head of that family and his lackeys mutilated Song’s face. He went into seclusion, and it was assumed that he died and that his ghost haunted an abandoned theater. When a touring acting troupe arrives at the theater, they discover that there is no ghost. However, a mysterious hooded figure begins training one of the actors in how to perform. It all ends badly.

* I'm including Ye Ban Ge Sheng in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because of its quality and its historical importance. Ye Ban Ge Sheng, known in English as Song at Midnight, was the first major Chinese horror/horror-musical film. It was well-shot, well-written, and well-acted for its time and for the conditions in which it was made. And its subtle leftist politics and anxiety about the Japanese are remarkable for the time and the genre in which Ye Ban Ge Sheng were made. Great stuff! 

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