By Chew Wan Ying

Less is more – that was the approach taken by Singapore’s MediaCorp stars Tay Ping Hui, Chen Liping, Elvin Ng and Rebecca Lim, when they were in Kuala Lumpur recently, along with Malaysian actor Wee Kheng Ming, to promote their drama series Unriddle 2.

Viewers in Singapore knew the twists of the show, however, as the 20-episode drama was shown there in March. It will be aired here on Ntv7 starting today.

Here’s the skinny on the show: It is a follow-up to the popular 2010 crime thriller series starring Chen and fellow MediaCorp actress Rui En as an unlikely duo who team up to unravel a string of mysterious cases.

For the sequel, Rui En, Chen and Tay reprise their roles as CID officer Hu Xiao Man, informer Lin Zheng Yi (nicknamed Da Bao) and Xiao Man’s boss Zhang Yu Ze respectively.

It’s not easy for Tay filming the death scene.

“My character dies very tragically. It was such an emotional scene and this woman here,” he said, pointing at his affable co-star Chen, and continued: “She started laughing and she just went on and on!

“You know she has an infectious laugh, right? So Rui En also started laughing, too. I was lying there and it got to an extent that I was like ‘I don’t want to die already!’,” said Tay with mock frustration, with Chen, 46, laughing loudly by his side.

They sounded cheerful when they recalled the episode, but the shooting process was anything but. Due to the dark tone and heavy subject matters, Rui En was said to have been depressed at one point struggling to get out of her character.

It’s not just the main characters that would make viewers hold on to their seats. Newcomers to the series, namely Rebecca Lim and Elvin Ng, also made an impression.

In what she described as her most challenging role in a Chinese drama series, Lim plays Xiao Man’s junior in the university, a psychiatrist who plays a pivotal role in advancing the plot.

Different from his usual boy-next-door roles, Ng, 31, starts appearing in the eighth episode as Xiao Man’s colleague, a cocky cop who is nicknamed Lang (wolf).

Like other characters, he’s walking the fine line between good and evil, said Ng.

“He seems to have a love-hate relationship with Xiao Man. You’ll never find out his true agendas until the very end. It’s intriguing to watch,” said the actor.

Source: The Star

Categorised in EN, NTV7, The Star, Unriddle 2 最火搭档 2, Unriddle 最火搭档.