For Andie Chen and Felicia Chin, filming the riots in MediaCorp Channel 8’s second season of ‘The Journey’ trilogy, ‘The Journey: Tumultuous Times’ 信约: 动荡的年代 was nothing short of massive.
“For the riot scenes, it’s the biggest thing I’ve done throughout my life in MediaCorp’, said Chen at the press conference last week.
“It’s a very big scene and we didn’t just take one day to do. Including the cast, crew and extras, there were close to 200 people of set with fire engines, antique police cars and lots of action…it’s wow, just massive, massive, massive!”
In the drama, Chen plays Hong Dang Yong, a member of the anti-colonialism group who was determined to fight for self-governance in the early days of Singapore. To prepare for his role, he made sure he read up a lot on Singapore’s history to present something that is ‘fresh’.
Filming for the riot scenes was indeed, tumultuous. Not only did they had to stand in the hot sun for hours, screamed on top of their lungs, they were drenched in water as fire engines on standby were ready to shoot high-velocity stream of water to the 100-strong ‘rioters’.
Chen added: “The scale of it is just so huge! It’s really overwhelming but after a while, you feel the energy on set and it just feels very good.”
Felicia Chin who plays Zhang Min, a school teacher who is also heavily involved in the riots, echoed her co-star sentiments on the ‘tumultuous journey’ for this drama.
“Andie, Romeo and I took a photo on the first day of shoot and about three months down the road we took another photo in Penang. We compared (both photos) and we were like ‘We look so different!’ Our faces looked like we had really been through a lot of ups and downs,” recalled Chin.
She posted the photo above with this caption: "14 weeks ago, on the very first day of filming #thejourneysg, @romeotan @andiechen and I took the picture above; 3 and 1/2 months later, we took the picture below. hahaha, do you see any differences in us? Do we look *gasps* 1)older 2) more mature 3) happier? Hehehe!"
Viewers will be able to see a different side of Chin in ‘The Journey’, away from her normal cheerful and upbeat roles. “I would like to present a more mature side of Felicia Chin.. a more multifaceted actress.”
“I’m also looking forward to see myself on screen as well.”
The Journey: Tumultuous Times also stars Shaun Chen, Jeanette Aw, Romeo Tan, Chen Han Wei, Carrie Wong, Brandon Wong, Li Nan Xing and Desmond Tan debuts tonight, 9pm on Channel 8!