Lakonan Mohsin dalam Villa Cinta Daddy

DALILAH IBRAHIM was in Seoul with the cast and production crew for the shooting of Malay drama Villa Cinta Daddy last month.

When you tune in to Villa Cinta Daddy, you will get to see many pretty scenes shot in South Korea, and complete with snow too.

Eurofine Productions, which produced the drama series, picked South Korea instead of the usual European countries to give viewers a new experience.

Lovebirds Juita (Deanna Yusof) and Kamal (Hani Mohsin) in a scene from the telemovie Villa Cinta Daddy.

The production crew of five and three of its cast – Deanna Yusof, Hani Mohsin and Mohd Frank Lewis – braved the freezing temperature of -10°C to shoot some of the scenes.

Among the interesting sites featured in the series were Seoul’s metropolitan city and tourist attractions like the Gyeongbokgung Palace, the famous Namdaemun night market and the Jisan Forest and Ski Resort.

“The choice of place was between Cardiff in Britain and Seoul. Incidentally, Eurofine has business partners in both cities.

“However, we settled for Seoul to break away from the European locations,” said Eurofine Production’s project manager Naharriah Mohammed who led the team to Seoul in early January.

Directed by Adam Hamid, Villa Cinta Daddy centres on businessman Amir Asyraf (Mustafa Kamal) who needs to convince his own father and son that his wealth is not derived from corruption and cronyism.

Juita (Deanna Yusof), who owns a television licence but is facing financial problems, seeks Amir’s financial support.

One of the directors in Amir’s company, Kamal (Hani Mohsin), is against the idea of investing in Juita’s company. He was Juita’s love interest.

The story goes that Kamal and Juita go to Seoul to meet Peter Kim (Lewis), a Korean business partner.

Other cast members include Zizie Ezzette, Datin Rosnani Jami, Annahita Bakavoli and Aida Radzwill

Although it’s not their first time working together, Hani and Deanna were convincing as a couple. They first worked together in Shuhaimi Baba’s Ringgit Ka Sorga in which Hani played Deanna’s brother.

“Being comfortable with your co-actors really helps in a production,” said Hani.

Hani, who has been playing villain roles of late, said he is aware of the public’s negative perception of him. Relating an incident, Hani said that some villagers actually gave him the cold shoulder after watching him beat up a woman in a drama.

“However, playing the villain is actually more challenging because you are playing the opposite of your real self,” he said.

Deanna, on the other hand, has been more selective of her roles and lamented that she had turned down many offers due to weak scripts.

“I received some good scripts but they did not materialise due to lack of financial support,” she said.

Her last Malaysian movie was Ringgit Ka Sorga and although she had acted in two French movies – Passeurs d’enfant (2002) and Un Homme en Colére (1999) – she is better known as the face of SKII skin care products.

Villa Cinta Daddy is aired in TV3’s Samarinda slot from Tuesdays to Thursdays at 10.30pm. The series concludes at the end of March.