The Lady Assassin Blu-ray Review

88 Films

Blu-ray Release: February 25, 2025

Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color

Audio: Cantonese LPCM 2.0 Mono 

Subtitles: English

Run Time: 90:33

Director: Lu Chun-ku

The old emperor is on his last legs and his most ambitious and amoral son plots to cheat his way to the throne. But taking power is the easy bit. Staying on top will prove much more difficult… (From 88 Films’ official synopsis)

King Hu’s Come Drink with Me (1966) and the female knight-errant wuxia released in its wake helped establish Shaw Bros. as the Hong Kong industry leader. While the studio’s later ‘70s and early ‘80s kung fu films saw a definite macho-ization, thanks to Chang Cheh and his Venom Mob, women remained a part of the equation, thanks to stars like Angela Mao (“the female Bruce Lee”) and Kara Hui. Shaw’s The Lady Assassin (1983) is more of a throwback to Hu’s work than Lau and Hui’s comedically-infused My Young Auntie (1981), looking forward to the Girls with Guns fad and rise of new megastars, including Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Khan.

It’s hard to refer to Leanne Lau as the film’s lead, because she plays support to her mustache-twirling, conniving male counterparts for so much of the film. She’s also joined by other dangerous lady brawlers, including Shaw veterans Huang Wei-Wei (Human Lanterns [1983]), Yueng Ching-Ching (Eight Diagram Pole Fighter [1982]), and fellow newcomer Chang Chiang-Yu. She didn’t grow into a martial arts star on the level of Mao, Yeoh, or Come Drink with Me’s Cheng Pei-pei; nevertheless, she does have considerable screen presence and a recognizable face to genre fans. She continues acting on high-profile Chinese television to this day.

Similar to his star, writer/director Lu Chun-ku doesn’t have the name recognition of Chang, Lau Kar-leung, or Chor Yuen, but he had a respectful career as an actor, stunt/action choreographer, and director, beginning in the early ‘70s. He had a nice run as a director for Shaw in the early ‘80s, including The Master (aka: 3 Evil Masters, 1980), Holy Flame of the Martial World (1983), and The Bastard Swordsman (1983). He also adjusted well to audience tastes with Girls with Guns flick Devil Hunters (1989) and the Cat. III Donnie Yen horror movie The Holy Virgin vs. The Evil Dead (1991). Compared to those films, Lady Assassin is a sort of throwback that only hints at the fantasy logic and moody style he’d later excel at. Its plot is driven by costumed melodrama and a nearly indecipherable series of political betrayals and intrigues, cramming so much history and legend into such a short runtime that the filmmakers are eventually forced to rely on narration to plug the holes.

Fortunately, the furious fights wedged between plot points are consistently creative, entertaining, and very bloody. Stunt/fight coordinators Yung Chung Yung, Poon Kin-Kwan, and Yuen Tak’s choreography splits the difference between the wacky wire antics that Yuen Woo-ping and the Yuen clan were beginning to experiment with at the time (as seen in The Miracle Fighters [1982]) and standard-issue, Shaw brand wuxia. I’d strongly recommend that everyone stick around for the wall-to-wall insanity of the climax, even if they aren’t exactly loving the rest of the film. Of the three coordinators, Yuen Tak (no relation) had the most interesting career. He joined forces with Corey Yuen (also no relation) on films, including Fong Sai-yuk (aka: The Legend, 1993), My Father is a Hero (1995), Hero (1997), and Kiss of the Dragon (directed by Chris Nohan, 2001).

Video

The Lady Assassin was, like most Shaw Bros. films at this point, available on region-free HK DVD (neither with English subtitles) and found its way onto streaming services over the years, thanks to distributor Celestial Films. It has been unavailable on stateside home video and has not been previously released on Blu-ray in any country. 88 Films’ BD debut features another HD scan supplied directly by Celestial, not a newly minted remaster as seen in some of Arrow’s recent Shaw Bros. discs. Being an early scan, this 2.35:1, 1080p transfer has all the typical issues with soft detail and texture, especially film texture, and some of the otherwise vibrant colors bleed.

Overall, it’s probably one of the better Celestial transfers, featuring plenty of dynamic range, neatly separated wide-angle elements, vibrant colors, and few notable artifacts. I’m also happy to report that the deep, relatively consistent blacks don’t entirely absorb the important visual information and that all of that late nite ninja action is dark, but still discernible.

Audio

Lady Assassin includes only a Cantonese audio option – no English or Mandarin dubs – in uncompressed LPCM audio (the HK DVD did include a Mandarin dub, so one was out there somewhere). The score is credited to Shing Chin-Yung and Su Chen-hou, who likely put together the handful of synth compositions that are used alongside typical library cues. The music is the strongest aural element, to a fault at some moments, where it drowns out everything else (especially the synth cues), but it has a richness and clarity that is sometimes missing from the hissy dialogue and effects.

Extras

• From Child Actor to Fight Coordinator (23:50, HD) – In this interview from the Frédéric Ambroisine archives, stunt/fight coordinator and performer Poon Kin-Kwan discusses his extensive training, career, and changes in filmmaking and the Hong Kong market over the decades.

• Video trailer

• Still 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.