In May this year, it was revealed that a new Chinese drama titled Go to the Mountains and Sea had began filming in Heng Dian, China.
In the past five months, the crew periodically shared on-set photos on their Weibo account as well as the drama’s cast list, which included Chinese A-list stars Gulnazar and Cheng Yi as the leads.
Hong Kong actor Julian Cheung will also be playing Cheng Yi’s father.
Here’s the weird part.
Go to the Mountains and Sea is a 40-episode adaptation of wuxia novel, Shen Zhou Qi Xia, written by Malaysian author Woon Swee Oan.
However, based on the cast list, Gulnazar will be playing Xiao Xue Yu, who is the sister of the male lead, Xiao Qiu Shui, played by Cheng Yi.
So… if the plot follows the novel’s, who is playing Qiu Shui’s love interest, the story’s “prettiest swordsman”, Tang Fang?
The production team oddly chose to kept that a secret, until last week, when filming finally wrapped.
On Friday (Oct 25), local actress Eleanor Lee, who has been based in China since 2016, took to her Instagram to confirm that she is playing Tang Fang.
Eleanor, 24, is the daughter of Mediacorp host Quan Yifeng and her ex-husband Peter Yu.
Sharing publicity photos of Go to the Mountains and Sea, Eleanor also revealed in her hashtag that she’d wrapped filming.
According to reports, photos of Eleanor and Cheng Yi on the set of Go to the Mountains and Sea have been circulating since three months ago.
The production team, however, refused to confirm that Eleanor is in the drama, which led to speculations that they did not want her to be affected by potentially-negative comments from the public during filming.