Game of Hunting 猎场 - Episodes 3 & 4 (Impression Post)

kakashi: Uh-oh, tragedy. Lies, broken hearts and a prison sentence... is it really worth it, Qiu Dong?

Panda: Heartbreak, prison, New haircut!! Good times ahead

SakiVI: What an awful life he leads.  

JoAnne:  Why am I the only one laughing? Between old lady stockings and people sentenced to work in fast food uniforms, the hysterical crying and fainting...my sides hurt.

Episodes 3 & 4

We knew this wouldn't end well, didn't we! Just when Zhen Qiu Dong gets another offer from some "friends" of Bai (this time, it's e-commerce...feels just as dodgy), which they seal with a huge duffle bag full of money, his little "multi-level marketing" company is stopped by the authorities.
I will confess to being happy that the bubble burst as it broke my heart seeing how those poor people ate up Qiu Dong's motivational words. He and the woman also didn't seem to feel much if any guilt over their actions.
Is that what happened?  I got bored.
I spent most of that time laughing at Ms. Support Stockings.  

Before that, the sexy bespectacled secretary is very much into Zheng and comes onto him quite strongly, touch-touch. I don't get her or her role in this... is she there to show us that he only thinks of one woman anyway, his Yi Ren, whom he spends a lot of time on the phone with? She has a job too now (at a concert hall?), but gets eyed dirtily by one of the bosses. Yuk. Much later, he wants her in another job - managing a company. She thinks she has no skills for that and is reluctant, but I do hope you will try, Missy.
The harassment by the Secretary really made me uncomfortable. Glad he knew how to manage her but yes, I hope the point wasn't to show/tell us Qiu  Dong is irresistible because that would be a case of preaching to the choir. That guy eyeing Yi Ren definitely wants her managing more than just a company...
I think she got the company job for being a capable employee.
Those support hose might even have been compression stockings, come to think of it.

Zheng manages to run when he sees the police arrest his colleagues. He ditches his old phone, buys a new one, and also buys a used car to drive back to Beijing (which takes days). When he finally calls Yi Ren, he has to hear that Bai has passed away. And Yi Ren is too naive - she tells some strangers posing as Zheng's friends at the funeral where she will meet him later and bam, he's arrested and sentenced to 5.5 years in prison. And a 750,000 yuan fine. Holy moly. Is that a lot?
I don't know how much that fine converts to but I am more than okay with the number of years. Crimes like this (in same vein Credit card schemes) make me so enraged. This goes a step further by targeting and swindling mostly poor people that can ill-afford the money. It's heinous. BTW, Weren't he and Yi Ren classmates and dating since college? I would have thought she knew a lot of his old classmates and found those guys suspicious, no wonder she was failed Grad school.
She was so easily fooled.
Yi Ren is stupid.  She's failed exams 5 times, I think they said?  She leaves her phone in the car - that wasn't a ploy to buy time to call Qui Dong and get his feedback on what should have been clearly suspicious men.  She gives Qui Dong's number to anyone who asks for it, which is just RUDE.  She's not only in love with a con artist, she's in love with a BAD con artist. She doesn't stop think about how come she doesn't know all these classmates that should be mutual.  Etc etc etc.

Being the overall good guy that he is, he is a model prisoner and gets his sentence reduced by two times 6 months. (Two years?)(Isn't 2 times 6 months 12 months?) He also gets himself a Shifu (an ex-headhunter now in prison for murder, apparently something to do with saving his wife?) and gets several academic degrees, in human resources management and finances. The prison guards are all very impressed. The murderer-shifu seems ill - shame, he's clearly a good guy - or maybe "good guy". He is the one who says good guys do bad things and bad guys do good things too. At the end, he asks Zheng to help him sell his house and bury his parents properly. Something's up though... the prison guard says as much too. What are you getting yourself into now, Qiu Dong?
I really like his Shifu. He seems like someone who was either framed or was forced to do what he had to do. He simply doesn't strike me as a bad guy. Oh and another thing, New Haircut!! Thank you. On another shallow note, QD must have gotten ripped in prison- that tee-shirt he wore on his release showed off some nice muscles.
I much preferred the new haircut.  To be honest, though, I was so bored with all this.  
The prison brush cut? I liked it too.  It really changed his face, not that his face is bad the other way.

With the help of Yi Ren's friend, a lawyer, Zheng breaks off his relationship with her completely, lying to her in a classical noble idiot fashion (pretending he hates her for "betraying him", calling her a slut, etc.). The lawyer friend knows very well he still loves Yi Ren very much, but just like Zheng, she thinks it's better for her not to wait and hope, so she lies to her about him being over her and being a very bad person.

The Lawyer seemed very extra emotional when she came back on her solo visit to test his sincerity hmmm. Regarding how he broke off with her, that was very cruel but he had to make a clean break. I will be truthful and say that I do not like Yi Ren very much. I thought she had broken off with QD and was gonna break off all contact after their goodbye in ep2. I didn't like it that she seemed to be two-timing and simply waiting for the other guy to die. Not like I was a huge Bai fan or anything but the whole thing left a bitter taste.

I don't blame her, actually.  Bai being on the brink of death was just one of those sucky things and it interrupted her breaking up with him.  If she had broken up with him anyway, she might've felt too guilty to date Zheng happily.  Plus, she's not really Bai's girlfriend anymore, but a guardian/nurse.

I'm with you.  How do you walk away from a dying man?  You don't, not if you're a decent person, and I think you can be a decent person even if your heart has moved on.

A few scenes that stuck:
- Zheng finding himself tongue-tied in front of people for the first time, when his inmates excited chatter about the female accountant makes him miss his Yi Ren so much, he temporarily loses it.
- Some great life-lessons he gets from his prison Shifu and the prison guard in charge of him. These guys are nice.
- The lawyer friend's lie to Yi Ren that Zheng has been found naked with another man in the prison garden. Haha, really?
The guards were really, really nice. This prison seems miles off from what is normally shown here. A very refreshing change. The naked men bit made me laugh too.
I was surprised how nice and supportive the guards were.
That prison seemed like a pretty nice place, agreed. I did wonder just how dirty those books and bookcases could get that they needed to be thoroughly scrubbed like that so often, though.

These two episodes were slow, but it's still clear to me what we are seeing. The rise and fall and rise and fall of an ordinary man and his chance encounter with people that will influence his life.
I have watched up to ep9 and enjoy very much.
I liked it episode 7 onwards.
Okay...