Las garras de la Tigresa

I am a Shaw Brothers fan, but they made some standout great movies, and some crappy waste of time movies. I had to force myself to log on to IMDb after watching this garbage trash of a film just to not make the mistake of watching it again by accident. If I remember the title of this movie 10 years from now it would only be because of how bad it is.

Challenge of the Masters is another one I remember but being a waste of time.

My favorite SB movies so far are:

Mad Monkey Kung-Fu Return to the 36th Chamber Clan of the White Lotus Legendary Weapons of China Heroes of the East Executioners from Shaolin

Any one of those movies if you have not seen them already is worth watching over this one because they have more substance and better fight scenes. This one movie is purely about fighting (as are some other SB films I don't like- and the fighting is unrealistic and has dislikable choreographed fights)

Some martial-arts purists think that comedy was the worst thing that could have happened to the old-school kung-fu flick; and it is true that the introduction of comedy into the genre signaled the end of the "chop-socky" period in Hong Kong film. But the fact is, one can only carry-on a primarily physical exhibition of prowess for just so long, then everyone gets bored with it. And that's really why the chop-socky died and how the Hong Kong "New Wave" action film was born: the producers, the actors, the directors all just got bored with hitting people for ninety-minutes straight.

Given that, and given the fact that Liu Chia Liang is a professional director with a considerable list of films in his resume, this film has to be seen as something other than just another kung-fu comedy. Rather, it is a comic film within the martial-arts genre, and in fact one of the best ever made.

What Liu has done with this film is really a pleasant surprise: he has taken a martial-arts plot and re-constructed it along the lines of a Hollywood-style musical! Complete with episodes of singing and dancing! It was around the time of the making of this film that some film-makers and film fans began to recognize that the cinematic performance of martial-arts (really derived from the acrobatics of the Chinese opera) has more in common with dance than with fighting. (I will continue to point out this connection until most Americans realize what they are actually supposed to look for when watching a martial arts film - well-choreographed body movements, using the plot of an action film as an excuse for their performance.) At any rate, quite clearly Liu Chia Liang made this connection and decided he would explore it close to its limits.

The result is an incredibly charming entertainment, filled with marvelously human characters attempting miraculous kung-fu (and tripping over their own shoelaces as often as not when they do so). and the film being set at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, allows Liu the opportunity to explore the nature of the Westernization and Modernization of China that contributed so greatly to the making of the China we know today. So the film has considerable historical import as well.

Also, fans of Stephen Chow's recent Kung Fu Hustle should really watch this movie carefully, as Chow clearly learned from it before the making of his own film.

A very amusing, well-made film. Oh, yes, and the kung fu in it is really, really good.

Purists won't admit it, but this is probably director Liu's best film.

Liu Chia-Liang's 1981 martial arts action-comedy is a rather unusual entry in the Shaw Brothers Studio output of kung-fu kick-'em-ups released in the '70s and '80s. "My Young Auntie" has a very strong emphasis on slapstick comedy - which stretches a lot further than I think the material really allows it to - over elaborately staged fighting sequences, which don't really come into play until the film's last half-hour.

Until then, the audience has to sit through a lot of familial comedy, which does not always work, and can make the film a drag. (It's 124 minutes in length, according to the official runtime on the Dragon Dynasty DVD, but it actually clocks in somewhere around 119 minutes.) Even I found the slapstick comedy to bring the film to a halt in some places, which is sometimes alleviated by a well-choreographed, if slapstick, fight scene, which seems more in the vein of Jackie Chan.

But even in the midst of it all, we get one of the very best performances out of its lead actress, who became one of the more noteworthy female martial arts action stars of her era. In the film, Tai-Nan Cheng (Kara Hui, credited here by her birth name, Hui Ying-Hung) is the dedicated servant of a dying elderly patriarch who marries him to prevent his inheritance from falling into the hands of his greedy brother Yu Yung-Sheng (Wang Lung-Wei). And of course, she butts heads with her new in-laws, even as she continually clashes with Yu Yung-Sheng's band of hired martial arts-trained hoodlums.

"My Young Auntie" primarily suffers from an overly long running time, which causes the slapstick comedy bits to wear themselves out pretty quickly and leaves you waiting for the fighting to begin. Perhaps if "My Young Auntie" was shorter, this could have worked. But what keeps you watching, really, is the dashing lead performance of Kara Hui, who had no prior martial arts background (she was a dancer), but relied on her physicality and grace to aid her in the film's fight scenes. And this also means that she is a great actress, too, and is easy on the eyes. In short, Kara Hui really carries this film.

All in all, if you're in the mood for a kung-fu movie that's slightly different from so many of the others, then give "My Young Auntie" a spin - if for nothing else, to watch Kara Hui in action.

7/10

"My Young Auntie" seems to be considered a minor kung fu classic by some people, and indeed it has a lot to admire: Kara Hui is a marvel to watch in action (with each new film I see her in, I become more and more convinced that she must be one of the 5 greatest female fighters in movie history; she is also underrated in terms of beauty), Hsiao Hou makes a very compatible and playful partner / rival for her, and old-school kung fu fans are sure to get a kick out of the final fight between Liu Chia Liang and his "evil" relative. The problem is that the film barely has enough story for 14 minutes, and yet it goes on for 114! Needless to say, it feels overlong. The last half hour is non-stop fighting: this may sound good in theory, but in this case it becomes repetitive, perhaps even exhausting. Also, it's a little weird that the central character, the Auntie of the title, is almost completely written off the action during the finale. (**1/2)

This film is a fine example of why the Shaw Brothers are among the finest directors (probably the best in the Kung Fu category). The movie is well paced, the story is excellent and intriguing, and while the humor may not be in your face, it is nested within the character interactions. Once the story builds up, and the characters begin to assess the situation does the whole tower come crashing down in one of the best fight scenes (tiger, crane and crab Hung Gar are very present). There is even a scene that mocks 18th century Western social events, and ends with clever and entertaining fighting. The movie ends with a sudden, cheesy moment, but if you are a fan of the Shaw Brothers, you'll understand that the cheese is just a topping, and not the main course of the movie.