A sobering experience two years ago influenced how Taiwanese actress Vivian Sung approached her role in her upcoming action-thriller film 96 Minutes.

Once while walking along a narrow street in Taiwan in 2023, she noticed a SUV trying to get through it.

"As the car was moving past me, the door opened suddenly and a child fell out right in front of me," the 32-year-old told AsiaOne in a Zoom interview from Taiwan recently while promoting the movie.

She instinctively carried the child from the ground immediately. "Although the car speed wasn't fast, it was still moving and if I had been slower by another 0.01 second, the child would have been hit."

Vivian recounted that at that moment, she was just focused on resolving the situation and ensuring the child was alright, adding that the kid wasn't hurt and only cried because of the traumatising experience.

She said: "I sat down 10 minutes after the incident to calm myself down and I realised my hands were trembling."

The manner in which she handled the situation was something Vivian thought about a lot while playing policewoman Huang Xin in 96 Minutes.

The film centres around former bomb disposal expert Song Kang-ren (Austin Lin), who boards a high-speed train from Taipei to Kaohsiung with his wife, policewoman Huang Xin (Vivian), and faces a bomb threat on the train.

Ridden with guilt from a bomb tragedy three years ago, Kang-ren races against time as he works with the police to stop the disaster in 96 minutes before the train reaches its destination. In the process, he discovers the truth behind the previous catastrophe.

Vivian told us: "How I handled the incident (with the child) was just like how Huang Xin would. When we are handling a crisis, we need to manage the situation but after that we would still feel shocked and have flashbacks."

She added: "Previously, I would bring my characters into my daily life. Huang Xin has to analyse and handle crises logically, quickly and directly.

"But for me personally, when I face such situations, I may scream first and be at a loss about what to do. So I separated myself from the character. When playing Huang Xin, I presented a more rational rather than emotional side of myself."

Austin Lin felt 'isolated' when wearing bomb detonation suit

Austin shared that while preparing to play Kang-ren, he visited the bombs disposal and investigation department in Taiwan's national police agency and tried out the bomb suit.

The 37-year-old recounted how surprised he was at the weight: "The suit, including the helmet, weighed about 45kg. The helmet is the heaviest especially."

He wore the suit for two days for filming and about two or three staff members had to help him each time.

In addition, he had to carry some bomb detonation tools, which slowed down his movements whenever he moved about.

"The weight of the helmet is unlike anything I had experienced before. Whenever I wore it, I felt isolated from the world... I felt quite lucky that I had built up my stamina to handle the weight," Austin said, adding he had to massage his neck after filming.

 

Austin also shared a memorable three-minute action sequence which he had to complete in a single shot.

"Director Hung Tzu-Hsuan is someone who likes to film action scenes and had strict expectations for it. It took me two to three months from training to filming the scene. I think it was challenging but I am satisfied and proud of the outcome," he said.

96 Minutes also stars Lee Lee-zen and opens in Singapore theatres on Sept 25.

 

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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com