The Stud and the Nympho
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.
My rating for this film: 6.0