The Lady Is the Boss Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

The Lady Is the Boss Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 25, 2025

The Shaw Brothers were getting close to moving virtually all of their production expertise to the world of television when The Lady is the Boss was released in 1983, and in many ways the film plays like a so-called "back door pilot" for a proposed sitcom. An Americanized woman named Chan Mei Ling (Kara Hui) returns to Hong Kong to take over her late father's extremely traditional martial arts school, and hilarity ensues. Well, if not hilarity, a lot of bantering and occasional physical schtick as Mei Ling's "modernizing" tendencies clash with the old, established way of doing things.

That old, established way of doing things is personified by the school's master, Wang Hsia Yuan (Lau Kar-leung, who also directed), and much of the humor of the piece is in the dialectic between Hsia Yuan, who can be a bit of a curmudgeon, and the energetic, youthful Mei Ling. Of course the two end up learning from each other, with Hsia Yuan realizing some of Mei Ling's "democratizing" efforts in terms of accepting perceived "lessers" as equal are actually a good thing, and with Mei Ling getting over her head in various conflicts and needing to rely on Hsia Yuan's wisdom, not to mention fighting skills. It's all pretty lightweight and predictable, but Kara Hui is delightful, if maybe one of those preternaturally spunky people you might be prone to ask, "Hey, could you chill for a minute, or at least until I have my morning coffee?"

The Lady Is the Boss Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Lady Is the Boss is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 88 Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The "fine print" on the bac cover of this release states this is a "high definition transfer from the original camera negative". Celestial Pictures has been doing a massive restoration of Shaw Brothers films now that several labels, including Arrow and Eureka!, have been releasing, and this has many of the positive attributes of any number of other Celestial efforts, including a really nicely suffused palette and generally very appealing detail levels. I found the color timing here to be just a bit flushed and kind of yellow-orange quite a bit of the time, and this transfer has a just slightly grittier (almost sandy looking) grain field, though there are no real resolution issues. As with many (all?) Shaw Brothers productions, curious anamorphic oddities can show up, especially toward the edges of the frame (see screenshots 7 through 9 for some examples).

The Lady Is the Boss Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Lady Is the Boss features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track in Cantonese, though as often tends to be the case in these Shaw Brothers outings, post looping can be more than noticeable, at least with regard to some of the performers. The track can show just the barest hints of distortion at some higher amplitudes, but on the whole offers good support for a story that includes quite a bit of music (and dancing), as well as the usual retinue of goofy sound effects during action sequences. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Lady Is the Boss Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Frank Djeng


• Sam Ho on Lau Kar-Leung (HD; 13:56) is another interesting interview culled from the Fred Ambroisine archives.


• Trailer (HD; 1:13)


• Stills Gallery (HD; 3:12)

Additionally, the keepcase insert features a reversible sleeve and the keepcase encloses a folded double weight poster. Packaging also features a slipcover.

The Lady Is the Boss Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are definitely some elements, including some problematic characterizations, that will probably chafe against more contemporary sensibilities of some viewers, and that's kind of inherently ironic given the film's focus on "new" perceptions replacing "old" ones. Some of the potentially controversial aspects, though tangential, may also point out the at least some of the humor in this film has not aged particularly well, and even the stuff that does still hits its target can tend to vary pretty widely in tone and even humor quotient. Still, the film is generally very genial and there are some outstanding set pieces in the third act in particular. Technical merits are generally solid and the supplements appealing for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.