Now available from 88 Films
A young woman comes back to Hong Kong after some times in America and soon sees that her father’s martial arts school needs a bit of change.
Written by Pa-Ching Huang, Tai-Heng Li, and Chia-Liang Liu who also directed, The Lady is the Boss is a fun martial arts action comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously while still giving the viewer some solid fights. The writing here works, some of the humor is dated of course, and the director being close the material works well here. The film as a whole is easy to watch, and its run time flies by. The film here is made to showcase the skills of Kara Hui in the titular role, clearly being written to fit her capacities and to make the most of her screen time.
Most folks here will be more interested of the performances than the writing or the humor, this is a martial arts film after all. Kara Hui is great here, charismatic, fun, funny, and badass. She really makes the film and takes every single scene she’s in and runs away with it. She’s the star, she knows it, the production knows it, the viewer knows it. There are a lot of people in this film, and she stands out throughout, erasing the majority of the rest of the cast from memory really. Top-billed above Kara Hui is writer-director Chia-Liang Liu and well, while he may have wanted to be the star, he’s doesn’t give the most memorable performance here, by far even. Which is something that applies to most of the cast. In fact, most of the ladies shines much brighter than the gents of the cast here and make the film what it is, fun and entertaining with a touch of female empowerment.
Now, this film, as opposed to most recent re-releases by 88 Films, is not a period piece. Or it wasn’t when it was filmed, making it more of a time capsule of 1983 Hong Kong. The color palette of the film, its lighting, and its cinematography by An-Sung Tsao works great with these as well as the multiple types of locations. Mainly though, the cinematography works great with the fight sequences which then leads to the editing by Hsing-Lung Chiang and Yen-Hai Li which gives the fight sequences a good dynamic and allows the viewer to get into them without cutting away too many times.
The Lady is the Boss is a fun, modern (in 1983) martial arts action comedy centered on a fun and feisty lead whom Kara Hui plays fantastically well. The film is a bit dated but can now be taken as a time capsule of Hong Kong cinema back in the early 1980s.
This new release is a sadly a bit barebones. While the image and sound quality are good and the newly translated subtitles are easy to follow, the extra content here is very limited with a still gallery, a trailer, and a set of collectors’ art cards. The release does look good with a fun slipcover and good art.
