She Shoots Straight (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Corey YuenRelease Date(s)
1990 (February 24, 2025)Studio(s)
Bo Ho Film Company/Golden Harvest (88 Films)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: B
- Audio Grade: B
- Extras Grade: B
Review
Like The Inspector Wears Skirts before it, She Shoots Straight (aka Wong ga lui cheung and Lethal Lady) is a “girls with guns” film that does female empowerment Hong Kong style, which means that a few caveats are in order (we’ll get to those in a moment). The comparison isn’t a frivolous one, either, since the two films shared a similar paths to reach the screen. The Inspector Wears Skirts was produced by Jackie Chan and utilized his stunt team, although he declined to make a cameo appearance in the film. She Shoots Straight was produced by Sammo Hung instead, with the difference being that he wasn’t shy about playing a significant role on both sides of the camera.
Yet She Shoots Straight wasn’t Hung’s first rodeo when it came to the girls with guns subgenre. He had also produced Yes, Madam! a few years earlier (a film that was retroactively shoehorned into the In the Line of Duty franchise as its second installment, but let’s not go there). And just like that film, Hung brought along the late great Corey Yuen to serve as director. Yet unlike the In the Line of Duty series, She Shoots Straight repeatedly undercuts its female empowerment, which is one reason why the comparison to The Inspector Wears Skirts seems more apt. We’re talking about a film that features a male character punching a woman to shut her up, and making it seem like she deserved it, too. Worse, it offers a genuinely distasteful scene where that same male character violates his wife’s autonomy by secretly poking holes in a condom—and even worse than that, a later plot twist makes him seem justified for having done so. When it came to female empowerment in Hong Kong cinema, it was often two steps forward, one step back.
Still, the roots of She Shoots Straight step even farther back than that, since it’s really a gender-reversed modern updating of traditional Chinese folklore about the generals of the Yang family during the chaotic period following the end of the Tang Dynasty in 907 CE. Instead of a family of generals under the aegis of a patriarch, it’s a family of police officers led by the matriarch Mother Huang (Pik-Wan Tang). Inspector Mina Kao (Joyce Godenzi) has just married Mother Huang’s son Tsung-Pao (Tony Leung), which has caused a rift with his sisters, who refuse to accept her intrusion into their family—with Chia-Ling (Carina Lau) being particularly upset. Yet when they’re assigned to a case involving a gang of Vietnamese criminals led by Hwa Nguyen (Yuen Wah) and his vicious sister Ying (Agnes Aurelio), tragedy ensues, forcing Mina and Chia-Ling to fight side by side in order to get some payback. She Shoots Straight also stars Sammo Hung and Chi-Wing Lau (and keep your eyes peeled for fleeting cameos from Corey Yuen and Amy Yip).
Yet there’s another influence at play in She Shoots Straight that’s necessary to unpack in order to be able to fully appreciate the film. Hong Kong cinema in general often employs tonal shifts that can seem a bit jarring to western audiences, but She Shoots Straight veers wildly from low comedy to high tragedy, with a heapin’ helpin’ of weepy melodrama thrown in for good measure. The presence of that melodrama was no accident since the film features actors like Pik-Wan Tang, who had played roles in multiple television soap operas including the long-running series The Seasons (which ran as segments on the variety show Enjoy Yourself Tonight on TVB). Her presence here meant that Hong Kong audiences in 1990 would have expected to see some histrionic melodrama, so She Shoots Straight delivers it in spades.
Yet the real driving force to She Shoots Straight isn’t Pik-Wan Tang, Corey Yuen, or even Sammo Hung. Instead, it’s Joyce Godenzi, who was one of the unsung ass-kickers of Hong Kong cinema during that period. She made barely a dozen films before she married Hung in 1995 and retired from acting in order to better promote her faith as a Jehovah’s Witness (like Father McGruder in Dead Alive, she now kicks ass for the Lord). A former Miss Hong Kong, she performed many of her own stunts in She Shoots Straight and most of the fighting, too. Carina Lau and Agnes Aurelio weren’t slouches, either, so the fights in She Shoots Straight are particularly impressive (although Aurelio is doubled in a few shots where Godenzi is still front and center). The way that Yuen undercut the agency of his female characters may be problematic, but once they start kicking ass, all is forgiven—and even Mother Huang demonstrates that she’s not to be trifled with. “I don’t mind starting a war like the one in Vietnam,” Hwa Nguyen confidently asserts, and he gets it from these women of the Huang family. As a result, despite any flaws, She Shoots Straight is a neglected gem in the Hong Kong girls with guns subgenre.
Cinematographer Moon-Tong Lau and Chi-ming Leung shot She Shoots Straight on 35mm film using spherical lenses, framed at 1.85:1 for its theatrical release. 88 Films describes this version as a “2K restoration from the original negative,” and while I don’t have the U.K. Blu-ray from Eureka for comparison purposes, it seems to be the same master, although not necessarily the same encode. It’s extremely clean, virtually pristine, with little to no visible signs of damage, and the colors all seem accurate (although obviously I don’t have any reference material to verify that fact). If there’s one criticism here, it’s that there’s a slight digitally processed appearance to many shots, possibly due to some sharpening, and the grain sometimes looks unnatural and a little noisy. It’s probably more noticeable in projection than it will be on a smaller flat panel, but it’s still something to be aware of. Otherwise, this is generally a solid presentation of She Shoots Straight.
Audio is offered in Cantonese 2.0 mono and 2.0 stereo LPCM, with English-dubbed 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 2.0 mono LPCM, plus optional English subtitles. She Shoots Straight was released in mono, of course, and the Cantonese 2.0 stereo track is nothing more than processed mono, with artificial channel separation and added reverb. It can safely be ignored. The English 5.1 track does sound like it has some remixed (and added) sound effects for a “true” multichannel feel, but the English dubbing leaves much to be desired. So, it’s best to stick with the Cantonese mono track, which has better balance overall. It does have a bit of excessive sibilance in the dialogue, but despite the fact that it was also post-synced, the dialogue still integrates better into the soundstage and sounds more natural overall. (Histrionic, perhaps, but still more natural.)
The 88 Films Blu-ray release of She Shoots Straight features a reversible insert with new artwork by Sean Longmore on one side and the original theatrical poster artwork on the other. There’s also a glossy slipcover with the Longmore art. The following extras are included:
- Commentary by Frank Djeng
- Interview with Yuen Kai-chi (HD – 15:46)
- Alternate English Credits (HD – 2:23)
- Image Gallery (HD – 2:20)
- Hong Kong Trailer (Upscaled SD – 2:37)
The commentary features the always voluble Frank Djeng, programmer and former marketing manager for Tai Seng Entertainment. (This appears to be a different commentary than the one that he did three years ago for Eureka, but that’s Djeng for you.) He provides detailed biographical information for most of the cast and crew, and as usual, he identifies which actors dubbed their own voices and which ones didn’t. (He does point out some inconsistencies in the dubbing, like when the Vietnamese characters end up flipping back and forth between Vietnamese and Cantonese even when speaking among themselves.) Djeng breaks down the script, the locations, the cinematography, and the stunt work, and even points out some puns and other language quirks that are usually lost in translation. He also addresses the tonal shifts that feel awkward to western audiences, and explains why they were actually expected by eastern audiences. Djeng tells some interesting stories that aren’t directly related to She Shoots Straight, like when he once helped Sammo go shoe shopping. It’s a great track.
Aside from an Image Gallery, the English-language version of the opening credits, and a trailer, the only other extra is a lively interview with screenwriter Yuen Kai-chi. In a short period of time, he covers a variety of topics like his career move from Tsui Hark’s company to Sammo Hung’s; the value of writers; the inspirations from the Yang saga and The Seasons; “Sister Pik” serving as an acting mentor for Joyce Godenzi; the relationship between Hung and Corey Yuen; and the fading state of the Hong Kong film industry. It’s a great interview to go along with a great commentary.
Missing here from the 2023 Eureka Blu-ray are the commentary from Mike Leeder and Arne Venema; an interview with filmmaker Valerie Soe; a locations featurette; and the older commentary with Djeng. But that disc was Region B locked, so it’s wonderful that 88 Films is offering a Region A friendly release for the North American Market, with a fine slate of extras of its own. She Shoots Straight is an overlooked action gem that’s recommended for any fan of Hong Kong cinema who is willing to accept a little bit of soap opera on the way to some satisfyingly brutal ass-kicking.
-Stephen Bjork
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