Shannon Cheong
Lee Shi Ying
One perk of filming with Ah Ge (senior actor) Li Nanxing is that you’ll never go hungry, his younger co-stars Carrie Wong and Romeo Tan said.
In an email interview with The UrbanWire, Romeo Tan, 36, and Carrie Wong, 27, shared that their 57-year-old co-star often treated them to good food.
“I remember once we overran and everyone was released late for lunch,” said Romeo Tan. “Li Nanxing offered to treat everyone and arranged to get the food delivered to our filming set. It was a very nice and generous gesture.”
He added: “To me, he is a legend since I watched his shows [during] my childhood days. I still feel excited whenever I see him on set.”
Carrie Wong was also all praise for Li Nanxing for his “easy-going personality” and for bringing good food to the set.
The three actors recently collaborated in the new Channel 8 drama, The Peculiar Pawnbroker, which will be released on meWatch today.
The inspiration for this drama came about when one of its scriptwriters became “curious about the traditional pawnshops” and was intrigued by stories of a successful pawnbroker in Taiwan.
Mr Tang Yeow, story planner of The Peculiar Pawnbroker, said these pawnshops are known as the “poor man’s bank” even today. He told The UrbanWire that his team tried to portray the “honesty”, “trust” and “values in human relations” in the drama, which is what “the core of the [pawnbroker] trade is really about”.
The drama is set in a traditional pawnshop named “Xiang Dang Dang”. Li Nanxing plays Cheng Huo Chang, the titular “peculiar” pawnbroker who’s known for his generosity rather than greed. Carrie Wong plays his daughter, Cheng Yi Cheng, and Romeo Tan plays Qiu Ke Yan, a modern, tech-savvy pawnbroker who ends up working for Cheng Huo Chang after losing a bet.
“The protagonist played by Li Nanxing is unlike the pawnbrokers of the usual pawnshops. His appraisal is not based on the value of the pawned items, but the ‘heart’ of the owner,” said Mr Tang.
Carrie Wong, who is collaborating with Li Nanxing for the first time, said: “It was definitely refreshing to work with him in the drama because he’s someone I have never worked [with] before.”
On the other hand, having collaborated with Romeo Tan in Dream Coder (2017), Carrie Wong said: “It’s probably not difficult to find the chemistry between us. Romeo is someone that is very easy to work with, so it was nothing but fun to work with him.”
Romeo Tan also said: “The fact that we can joke around and be pretty comfortable with each other already helps us save a lot of time.”
Mr Tang added that viewers can get a sense of the inner workings of the pawnbroking industry. He hopes the drama can change the perception that pawnbrokers are all out to “eat people” and exploit those who are most financially desperate.
The Peculiar Pawnbroker premieres on Channel 8 on 23 Nov, 9 pm. It will also be available on MeWatch from today onwards.
Proofread By: Ruth Loo Hui En and Rytasha Passion Raj