Originally Posted by
wkeej
I watched the series within 2 days. Then it is video tapes.
Some thoughts are:
1. to be the ultimate, you must ignore the six "qing". actually, to date, I can't name them. should be parents, teachers, family
This theme was carried over into THE SHELL GAME II as well. As always, however, using this method carries with it a price.
2. power goes one cycle. the mayor is back to power in the end.
Do you mean the Chairman of the Guangzhou Gambling Association, Fok Man Ting (played by Chow Chung)? This guy never lost power. He was in power all the way through. In the beginning he supported the Hung Family, but later switched his support to Tam Sing when it became evident that Tam would be the new kingpin in the Guangzhou gambling community.
3. Tam Sing's skills in gambling were hardly challenged. it will be good to add some suspense to this. Perhaps, the emphasis is more on character instead of gambling.
Actually, there was very little tabletop gambling done during the final part of the series when Tam Sing challenged Cheuk Lei. They had one card match (which Tam won), but that's it.
Originally Posted by
charbydis
The fact that Tam Sing spent so much time training to gamble for revenge, yet the end, resorted to overuse of bombs and guns seemed very disappointing for me. I mean, a gambling show-down between Cheuk Lei and Tam Sing would have been great (luckily they made up for it in part two when it did happen)!
They only had that one card match. Neither one really got to exhibit his/her gambling skill in full force.
But Lo 4 Hoi had said to Tam Siu Tong way back in Episode 2, "A Swindler isn't focused on gambling, but on plotting." That's what it came down to in the end: not tabletop games, but a much bigger game played out in human lives.
Also, the rape thing was a bit over the top. One thing to be cold and emotionless, then another to let your long-lost daughter get brutally raped while you are hiding one board away. Make's one think that gees, is revenge all that important? I would rather die in a fight than to watch her get raped.
It would have been futile, though. Lo 4 Hoi was just one man, and he was blind. There was nothing he could do against four or five armed men. He could have died valiantly to save his daughter, but she still would have been raped. In fact, had he resisted, her fate might have been even more brutal.
I think the main point of "The Shell Game" is that all people can be corrupted no matter how innocent you are. Greed, power, fame, revenge, and wealth can control someone to make choices that they would not normally do and will regret for the rest of their lives.
I think there was a warning in THE SHELL GAME about what happens when ambition overreaches the conscience. Tam Sing was always ambitious, even when he was a naive young man. As his skills and experience grew, so did his ambition. After he started learning from Cheuk 1 Fu, his ambition overtook his conscience.
Everyone strives to climb to the top yet when they get there, they realise they are the most miserable people in the world. The clever ones leave and opt for a simple (?poor) life before the lose everything rather than a rich but painful life.
That's the price that Tam Sing paid. By THE SHELL GAME II, it was clear that Tam Sing had finally learned his lesson, but it was too late. He had already condemned himself.
However, the ending pisses me off so much.
click to show/hide spoilers How can Tam Sing leave Ying Ying in the nunnery after that one talk? At least he can persist and talk to her again and again until she relents. After all, her main problem is that she is concerned that she is unworthy because she was raped by her brother. He is such an idiot.
He regrets for the rest of his life yet does he go and ifnd her agian? No.
click to show/hide spoilersThis was the "Ignoring the Six Relations" at work. Tam Sing had worked hard and suffered greatly to attain the title of King of Gambler Kings. He couldn't just walk away from it...not even for Ying Ying. You could tell it was a difficult decision for him, but in the end, he wanted that position more than he wanted her. He wished he could have it all, but when it became evident that he had to sacrifice true love for the attainment of his ambition, he chose to make that sacrifice.
This was, of course, the tragedy of his story. Did he make the wrong decision? By THE SHELL GAME II, it seemed evident that he might have believed that he did, but it was too late to go back and do things over. Therein also lies a lesson...
Additionally, few people realize this, but there was actually kind of, sort of, a THIRD SHELL GAME series produced by TVB during the early 1980s. In 1983, TVB released a series called THE BOLD ONES, starring Kent Tong, Austin Wai, and Tung Wai. Although this series had no direct storyline connections to THE SHELL GAME or THE SHELL GAME II, Simon Yam appeared once again as Tam Sing in THE BOLD ONES as a supporting character, and some references were made back to other characters and events in THE SHELL GAME and THE SHELL GAME II. THE BOLD ONES, therefore, could be considered the third part of a THE SHELL GAME TRILOGY.