The Lady is the Boss (1983) September 12, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Action, Kung Fu, 1980s films , trackbackDirector: Lau Kar-Leung Cast: Kara Hui Ying-Hung, Lau Kar-Leung, Lau Kar-Fai (Gordon Liu), Hsiao Ho, Wong Yu Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
The human mind is a strange thing. Long ago, I’d got it into my head that I’d seen, on some kind of compilation tape, a scene from a movie where the monk San Te (made famous by the legendary 36th Chamber movies) battles alongside Hsiao Ho’s Mad Monkey persona in an early 80’s action flick in a gymnasium. Impossible stuff, to be sure, but I thought I’d seen it. After scouring my tapes, I realised it must have been some kind of demented fantasy, or at best I was horribly mistaken. But more on that later.
The Lady is the Boss seems like the final part of a trilogy of films by Lau Kar-Leung exploring tradition, the change in social attitudes over time and female liberation – themes that were hardly staples of the Shaw Brothers’ (or indeed, any Hong Kong company’s) output at that time. It’s probably entirely unintentional, but this feels like a relative of 1978’s sublime Heroes of the East (a film so good, I even stole the name of it for this blog!) and the worthy 1981 production My Young Auntie. All three have the same underlying theme and share an unusual trait for films of this genre – no one is killed and there’s very little ‘violence’ on screen.
That said, this is definitely a bit more barbed than either of the other two films. The main plot focuses on Mei-Ling (Kara Hui) coming to Hong Kong to run the martial arts school currently being taught by Wang (Lau Kar-Leung). Upon her arrival from the USA (Hui is seen chewing gum throughout and slanging English and Cantonese with a wantonness that leaves the poor Chinese traditionalists reeling), she despairs of the old-fashioned methods of teaching and Wang’s insistence on quality over quantity. You see, the school has just five pupils, and training in stances alone takes one full year! Mei-Ling comes in and revamps the school, getting lots of new students in the process. Among the new recruits are a bunch of nightclub workers, whose boss is not too happy that his ladies are being taught ways of fending off the advances of their clients. As the boss is played by veteran bad-boy Johnny Wong, we’ve got a pretty good idea where things are going to end up.
The Lady is the Boss must have looked dazzlingly modern back in 1983; which is to say it looks horribly dated now. We’ve got neon pink outfits, effeminate men wearing lipstick, terribly tinny disco music and even a few BMX bicycles – all the hallmarks of a true 80’s production! It all serves to make viewing the film all the more enjoyable, and no fan of the decade will be disappointed. Besides, it makes a change from all the period pieces being churned out at the time by the studio.
Comedy plays a strong part in the film, and while the attempts at humour aren’t as bad as other Shaw productions, it still occasionally grates. Like its predecessors, most of the humour is derived from the situations and the views of the traditionally minded versus the radical. In places, the film plays a little too much like My Young Auntie for its own good in this regard, and occasionally you can’t help but feel that you’ve seen it before.
Surprisingly, the kung fu is downplayed for much of the movie in favour of comedy skits and other action scenes (including, as has been mentioned above, a short sequence involving BMX bikes). When it does kick off, though, it’s pretty impressive. With the likes of Wong Yu (Dirty Ho), Lau Kar-Fai, Hsiao Ho et al (not to mention Lau Kar-Leung himself), you know you’re going to get something special. You have to wait a while, but you do get it eventually. And there it is – Lau Kar-Fai playing a man playing San Te, and Hsiao Ho doing his Mad Monkey routine. You’d be wrong to think there’s a good reason, plot-wise, for them doing it, but then there’s not a lot of reason involved in most of this film!
In the final analysis, there’s a feeling that subconsciously Lau Kar-Leung was still siding with tradition in this film, despite the “old guard” being shown as outdated and a trifle ridiculous. The five young men who trained under the old master still have far superior skills than anyone trained under Mei-Ling, and the “fast-track” training employed by her could be seen to be portraying “modern” martial arts training techniques in a derogatory light. But I could be looking into it a bit too deeply, there. It is, after all, an action comedy, and as they go, you could do worse than this 84-minute mini-celebration of 80’s kitsch.
Comments»
I just stumbled upon your blog and boy am I glad I did. Love It!
Just wanted to add that I don’t think you are “looking into it a bit too deeply”. One of Lau Kar Leung’s favorite themes was the physical AND moral development that is gained through rigorous (and traditional) kung fu training and there’s no doubt of that theme popping up in this film as well.
Thanks for your comments Adrien, and I hope you stick around for more! I’ll certainly be doing more Lau Kar Leung films in the not too distant future as well.
As an aside, I heard yesterday that Wong Yu died in May, which is very sad news indeed.