My Young Auntie is a 1981 Shaw Brothers Martial Arts Movie directed by Lau Kar-leung and starring Kara Wai as the titular Auntie, in Kara's breakthrough role which made her the Shaw's favourite choice for a female action icon in the early 80s (after the departure of other Shaw action ladies such as Cheng Pei-Pei, Shih Szu, Li Ching, Shu Pei-pei, and the like)
A feud for inheritance between the two brothers, Master Yu Cheng-chuan (Lau Kar Leung) and Yu's greedy, backstabbing brother, Yu Yung-Sheng (Johnny Wang Lung-wei, yet another villainous role), drives the central plot of the film; both brothers are owners of Martial Arts schools based in Canton, and both schools are actively opposing each other for dominance in the martial world. And while the elder Master Yu is willing to play fair and educate the public on enlightened values with kung-fu skills, the younger brother, Master Sheng, is known to be cruel, ruthless, and intends to abuse his skills for selfish reasons.
The father of the two brothers, in secret, had a young trophy wife, Cheng Tai-nan (Kara Hui), who is a martial arts champion in her own right, and had made a promise to her elderly husband on his deathbed that she will do everything in her power to prevent the inheritance from being completely stolen by either of the brothers. Moving from the outskirts of town after the husband's death, into the school owned by Master Yu Cheng-chuan, hijinks ensues when the traditional, Chinese-educated Cheng stumbles across Master Yu's Western-educated son, Charlie Yu (Hsiao-Hou, from Mad Monkey Kung Fu). Despite the clash of egos between Cheng and Charlie, both of them ends up working together to take on Master Yu's brother, Yu Yung-Sheng, who will do anything to hog the inheritance all for himself.
Kara Wai notably won herself the Best Actress nomination for the 1st Hong Kong Film Awards in 1982. The Shaws would try to capitalize on her role in this film with a similar (but much more abysmal and honestly mediocre) follow-up film, Lady is the Boss, which rehashes much of the plot of My Young Auntie, but with the setting readjusted to the present day.
My Young Auntie contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Cheng Tai-nan, the titular Young Auntie, is an expert martial artist whose skills are enough to make her being elected as supervisor to Master Yu's kung-fu school. With her first scene beating up a dozen hooligans while seated in a palanquin.
- Achilles' Heel: Master Sheng's dragon, an unnamed qigong expert, who is Nigh-Invulnerable to all sorts of attacks and can bend knives jabbed at his chest... but having an exposed, vulnerable spot in his armpits. Much of the lengthy final battle revolves around Cheng Tai-nan and Charlie Yu trying to get past his defenses and hit him in the sole weak spots.
- Attack Hello: Cheng, upon her very first arrival in Master Yu's school, and greeted by an oblivious Charlie who mistook her for a call girl, starts with Charlie teasing her and ends with both of them breaking out into a fight. Until Master Yu enters, introduces Cheng Tai-nan as Charlie's new caretaker, much to Charlie's chagrin (Complete with an Oh, Crap! look).
- Conveniently Placed Sharp Thing: In the final breakout with Cheng Tai-nan being tied up by Master Sheng and his mooks, while Master Yu and Charlie are fighting off random mooks, Charlie managed to slip a short knife to Cheng.
- Culture Clash: The differences in opinions between the traditional Chinese Cheng Tai-nan and the Western-educated Charlie Yu - the latter who tries to Westernize her throughout the film - drives most of the plot of the first half of the film.
- David vs. Goliath: Invoked in the final battle when Charlie and Cheng have to do battle against Master Sheng's qigong-trained henchman, a huge, muscular brute of a man who towers over Charlie and Cheng. And with skin that can bend the tips of knives thanks to his qigong powers. Charlie managed to turn the fight around by pulling off a handful of hair from the qigong fighter's armpits.
- Fish out of Water: Cheng Tai-nan, a martial artist and niece of Master Yu, who hails from the outskirts of town before making her way to Canton to oversee her uncle's martial arts school. Hilarity Ensues, mostly due to the culture clash between the traditional Cheng and Master Yu's Western-educated son, Charlie Yu.
- Gratuitous English: Charlie Yu, being a Hong Kong student recently returning from studying overseas, tends to sneak in English terms at random while conversing with Master Yu and Lady Cheng Tai-Nan for no reason whatsoever. The Language Barrier leads to multiple moments of hilarity between the characters.
- High-Heel Power: Averted; while fighting some hooligans whilst clad in a qipao and high heels, the first thing Cheng Tai-nan did is to ditch her heels and fight while wearing just nylon stockings... in the middle of city streets. At the end of the fight her socks ends up completely torn apart.
- I Can't Dance: Cheng Tai-nan said this word-for-word after Charlie Yu and his friends tries convincing her to be more "Westernized" by getting her to join a Western-themed ball. Turns out she is hilariously right.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Cheng Tai-nan's shopping spree ends with her fighting off a bunch of hooligans... while clad in a Qipao. And winning. Although she ends up getting her white qipao badly messed up, and her nylon socks torn, giving her an Unkempt Beauty kind of look.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Cheng and Charlie registers themselves as Caucasians simply by putting on blonde wigs and fancy-looking, westernized dresses, despite being played by two very Chinese actors (Kara Wai and Hsiao-Ho). And somehow Master Yu gets fooled in the process! Note that Charlie is Yu's own son.
- Shopping Montage: Cheng Tai-nan's first day in Hong Kong had her dragging (a rather reluctant and somewhat exasperated) Charlie behind her as she goes shopping around the big city.
- Shout-Out:
- During the Western-themed fancy-dress banquet scene, Charlie and Cheng are respectively dressed as the leads from Robin and Marian. With Charlie even calling himself "Robin" a few times. The banquet scene also have a trio of hooligans dressed like The Three Musketeers (1973).
- When the banquet gets ugly and a fight inevitably breaks out, a pirate-dressed hooligan tries intimidating Charlie with his saber. Charlie responds by whipping out a puny little dagger, much like the ending duel of Peter Pan.
- Sucks at Dancing: Cheng Tai-nan's tango in the banquet can only be described as her being a "human ragdoll" while trying to keep up with Charlie and the rest of the dancing couples.
- That Reminds Me of a Song: A conversation between Cheng Tai-nan and Charlie, with a bunch of Charlie's friends in tow, suddenly breaks out into a song, complete with a dance number, with Charlie and a surprised Cheng in the middle. It lasts for several minutes and sticks out painfully in what was supposedly a kung fu film.
