The Stud and the Nympho
Director: Lu Chi aka Lui Kei
Year: 1980
Rating: 6.0
There is in fact no stud
or nympho is this whimsically titled 1980 film, but this offering from the
very busy Lu Chi is actually one of his better efforts in that it is at times
mildly amusing even if kind of scattershot. Once again he brings in Ai Ti,
Ling Tai and Yum Yum Shaw to provoke some heavy breathing among the audience.
There is an odd part of me that wishes I could transport myself back in time
to sit in the theater during one of these Lu Chi productions to see what
kind of people actually came to see them. It is hard to imagine going to
the movies to see these harmless pieces of fluffy exploitation – they aren’t
trashy enough to be fun and the sex and nudity is so inconsequential. But
those were different times – no cable, no Internet, no video.
Lu Chi loses no time in displaying the female form as the opening credits
are shown along with women in the nude doing a peculiar workout and one single
enormous breast is repeatedly flashed on the screen. In a theater it must
have been frightening. A few women are sitting around a table trying to decide
what to call their new organization that they are forming to keep a check
on their philandering husbands – “Silver Lining” a race horse is discarded
because men ride them all day – to which one of them women says “what’s wrong
with that?” There is then a flashback that in fact takes up the entire film
and we never return to the finally decided upon “Tigers Club”. The flashback
reveals the stories of Pei Pei (Ai Ti), Fifi (Yum Yum) and Betty (Ling Tai)
and their relationships with men.
Fifi suspects her husband (Frankie Wei-hung) is cheating on her and tells
him that she will forgive him as long as he is truthful – he falls for this
ploy and tells her of his various mistresses (visualized on the screen for
us) – one is called “4 Happiness” because she is racially mixed and in mahjong
this term means mixing north and south and east and west. Another is French
who have a long “oral” tradition – but the husband tells his wife that he
won’t return the favor as it is taboo for Chinese men to do so. This might
partly explain why I see so many couples made up of white men matched with
an Asian woman but rarely the reverse! Get down to it guys and do your duty!
Fifi hears this and of course immediately files for divorce. This also pretty
much ends the nudity in the film so if that’s why you came in you can feel
free to leave at this point.
Though it’s hard to imagine anyone cheating on Pei Pei (as played by Ai Ti),
her husband Harry is fooling around with the nutty but frisky Betty – a change
of pace for the usually innocent characters played by Ling Tai – who tells
Harry at one point that she makes a great mistress but would be a terrible
wife. Harry is portrayed by Tang Ching who comes across as a sadly aging
lothario and looks a bit like John Barrymore towards the end of his career.
Various shenanigans take place and flashing discos are a favorite haunt of
the characters as is the case in many of Lu Chi’s films. Then suddenly about
two thirds of the way through this goofy film it decides to become a thriller
as a psycho falls in love with Pei Pei and decides to kidnap and woo her.
When she is rude to him he abuses his blow up doll in a very cruel manner.
There must be a law against that isn’t there? This is a really haphazardly
plotted film but it has its moments if you can find them.
