Lady is the Boss Blu-ray Review

88 Films

Blu-ray Release: March 25, 2025

Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color

Audio: Cantonese 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio Mono 

Subtitles: English

Run Time: 97:07

Director: Lau Kar-Leung

A thoroughly Americanized young woman (Kara Hui) returns to Hong Kong to visit the martial arts school founded by her father and shakes it up with some trendy new ideas. But not everyone is keen on her innovations – a lesson she'll have to learn the hard way. (From 88 Films’ official synopsis)

The 1980s are remembered as the end of the line for Shaw Bros., but a number of the studio’s greatest films were released between 1980 and 1984, from Kuei Chih-Hung’s Killer Constable (1980) and The Boxer’s Omen (1983), to Chang Cheh’s Five Element Ninjas (1982) and Sun Chung’s Human Lanterns (1982). But few filmmakers ended the period with as many career highpoints as Lau Kar-leung, whose final years at Shaw included My Young Auntie (aka: Fangs of The Tigress, 1981), Martial Club (1981), Legendary Weapons of China (aka: Legendary Weapons of Kung Fu, 1982), and The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (aka: The Invincible Pole Fighters, 1984), all with his adopted brother Gordon Liu and muse Kara Hui (aka: Kara Ying Hung Wai) by his side.

My Young Auntie is probably his greatest Shaw comedy, but its thematic follow-up, Lady is the Boss (1983), definitely deserves a second look. Hui once again plays a talented lady martial artist from out of town who has to prove herself to doubting male counterparts, Lau plays another paternal figure trying to keep the peace, and the key theme of both films is the conflict between Eastern tradition and modern Western consumerism*. The key difference between the two (aside from time periods) is that, in My Young Auntie, Hui is a traditionalist and her annoying ‘nephew’ Hsiao Ho (who also appears here) is the Western-educated muckraker, whereas she is the cultural outsider in Lady is the Boss. It’s arguably the weaker film overall, but a better showcase for Hui as a performer. 

Lady is the Boss helps set the stage for lady-led comedies, like Wellson Chin’s The Inspector Wears Skirts series, which also starred Kara Hui and spun out of hard-boiled Girls with Guns movies, like Corey Yuen’s Yes, Madam! (1985). The Inspector Wears Skirts steadily grew sillier and less interested in staging action and, in that fashion, Lady is a Boss spends its early acts indulging in absurdist gags. Fortunately, it’s a lot funnier than the Inspector Wears Skirts movies and its girl power message carries a lot more weight, especially after Hui risks retaliatory violence and social rejection to defend her sex worker students. Patient viewers will be rewarded with some surprisingly brutal martial arts action and showstopping sequences that adorably adapt Lau’s choreography style for ‘practical’ purposes, exchanging bloody fisticuffs for dance fights and shimmering blades for BMX bikes and gym equipment.

* In Kung Fu Cult Masters (Wallflower Press, 2003), author Leon Hunt adds Hui’s youth in both films as another challenge to the status quo, which he refers to as specifically Confucian traditions. 

Video

As often happens with Shaw Bros. releases, Lady is the Boss was available on region free DVD from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and in HD via various streaming services. This 2.35:1 Blu-ray debut utilizes the same 1080p transfer from rights-holder Celestial Films and has the same advantages and disadvantages we’ve come to expect from older Celestial remasters. The footage looks better in motion than it does on the screencaps I’ve included on the page, especially in terms of grain texture, which appears more natural on screen. Other typical side effects include slightly soft detail, blooming white highlights, and lots of baked-in anamorphic lens effects. Colors are vivid and black levels are strong, if not a bit crushy.

Audio

Lady is the Boss is presented in its original Cantonese and uncompressed 2.0 mono. The older DVDs included Mandarin and Cantonese, so there’s an alternate track out there somewhere, but, if there was ever an English dub, it has been lost for quite some time. The dialogue is a little on the hissy side and the music features some abrasively tinny cymbal noises, but the lip sync works well and I believe the main cast is dubbing their own performances. The sparsely utilized score, which mixes traditional and synth melodies is credited to Ching Chin-Yung and Su Chen-Hou, but I suspect most of the music is recycled from other sources, as per usual.

Extras

• Commentary with Frank Djeng – Everyone’s favorite NY Asian Film Festival programmer returns for another info-packed look at the film’s production, release, and the wider careers of the cast & crew. Djeng compares Lady is the Boss to Lau’s other films, especially My Young Auntie, discusses the film’s plot in a larger historical context (there was apparently a wave of immigration to Hong Kong at the time), and explains a number of cultural references and in-jokes. 

• Sam Ho on Lau Kar-leung (13:56, HD) – This interview with academic and critic Ho was conducted by Fred Ambroisine and quickly covers the director/performer/choreographer’s wider career.

• Hong Kong trailer

• Stills gallery

The images on this page are taken from the Blu-ray and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.