My Young Auntie

The Shaw Bros policy of selling dubbed-only versions of their productions does no favours to Lau's over-extended kung fu comedy, first and foremost a showcase for the talents (martial and otherwise) of his then girlfriend Hui Yinghong. She plays an upright young widow from the Chinese hinterland, who finds herself in the 'cosmopolitan' Canton of the 1930s, trying to protect an inheritance from the black sheep of the family she married into. One set of repetitive jokes springs from her youth (she could be the daughter of her elderly nephew, played by Lau himself), and another from her joshing relationship with her nephew's son (played by Lau's real-life star pupil Xiao Hou), a boy her own age who has been 'westernised' by studying in Hong Kong. The dubbing kills all the 'Chinglish' language gags, and so the entertainment value rests squarely on the fight scenes - which are expectedly brilliant in choreography and execution. The UK video release is correctly letterboxed.