Verdict
Summary
Fun, while not always being exactly what I’d call believable, The Lady is the Boss has a distinctly early ’80s sensibility, while having its roots in Shaw Brothers kung fu classics. Its star Kara Ying is incredibly appealing, if a little annoying with her screeching voice, but she’s super cute and spunky to a fault, and while I don’t think she posed much of a threat on the physical side (she’s a featherweight and looks like a dancer more than a martial artist), the movie makes her look great with tricky moves and camerawork, especially when she gets on a bicycle and uses it like a weapon. The cast does their best to keep up with her, and the music is full of bubbly pop songs, and so the film is just a good time overall.
Plot:
A fledgling martial arts school gets turned upside down when the boss’s daughter comes to Hong Kong to whip the school into shape … or disarray!
Review:
An old martial arts school in Hong Kong is shut down by city officials for being housed in a condemned building, and the school’s teacher is a nearly illiterate old timer (played by Lau Kar-leung, who also directed) whose five students (one of whom is played by Gordon Liu) are also illiterate, but faithful to him to a T. They relocate to another building but need help building up their members, and so they reach out to the owner’s distant relative, who lives in America. When Chen Mei-Ling (super spunky Kara Ying Hung Wai) arrives, she’s not just a breath of fresh air for the martial arts school, but also a totally non-traditional, against-the-trend teacher who thinks she can recruit literally anyone from the street and turn them into kung fu dynamos! Her first step is promotion, which the five clueless veteran students are terrible at, but the promotional stunts work: They comb the streets, hand out fliers, demonstrate martial arts with children, photo bomb live news broadcasts, and do anything they can to get the eyes of the public. Next, Chen appeals to the females in the city, namely hookers and lady companions at bordellos, which backfires in a big way when the entire staff at a bordello run by mobsters realizes that their girls have become tough and don’t want to be molested anymore. The mob raids Chen’s little martial arts school, prompting a rivalry between the school and the mafia, which turns into a free-for-all brawl that spills out into the streets where Chen and her friends use BMX bikes to fight off the thugs.
Fun, while not always being exactly what I’d call believable, The Lady is the Boss has a distinctly early ’80s sensibility, while having its roots in Shaw Brothers kung fu classics. Its star Kara Ying is incredibly appealing, if a little annoying with her screeching voice, but she’s super cute and spunky to a fault, and while I don’t think she posed much of a threat on the physical side (she’s a featherweight and looks like a dancer more than a martial artist), the movie makes her look great with tricky moves and camerawork, especially when she gets on a bicycle and uses it like a weapon. The cast does their best to keep up with her, and the music is full of bubbly pop songs, and so the film is just a good time overall.
88 Films has just released a premium Blu-ray edition of The Lady is the Boss, and it comes in a limited edition package that includes a slipcover, a double sided poster, new artwork, an aduio commentary, a trailer, stills, and more.