SHE has waited 14 years to 'kill off' her supposed rival, Fann Wong.

And in true drama-mama fashion, the shooting, at least, of the scene, took place in a beautifully forlorn lalang field at Tanah Merah Coast Road.

Holding a gun, Zoe Tay shrieked at a tearful Fann: 'Why did you have to appear in this world? Why did fate arrange this?'

The weight of her 9mm pistol, and maybe even her conscience, proved too heavy as her hand trembled.

She pointed her gun, ready for the kill...

'And CUT!' the executive producer's (EP) voice sliced through the humid air.

Zoe's angst-filled expression wasn't what the EP wanted, so the actress dabbed her tears away, and did the scene again.

The two Ah Jies of MediaCorp were filming the climactic scene of The Ultimatum last Thursday.

The drama, which begins airing on Channel 8 from 27 May, is the pair's first collaboration in 14 years since The Golden Pillow in 1995.

They were visibly tired from the emotional upheavals of the many retakes.

Zoe, the Queen of the Hill, wasn't having a cushier time despite her standing and experience in showbiz.

Her recent works have not only severely tested her acting chops, but have also milked her tear ducts.

She played the disgraced wife of an Aids victim in last year's By My Side where tears flowed aplenty. In The Ultimatum, Zoe screams, schemes and even kills.

Her character Yuchen blames Fann's character Songqiao for her fall from grace and the scene in the lalang field is the intense face-off between the two.

This scene will be in the first episode of the drama, which will then continue with a flashback of the events that led to the confrontation.

Later that day during filming, Zoe also had to chase and shoot at Fann.

That was no child's play. A real pistol was used and though it was loaded with blanks, there was still gunpowder inside.

Earlier, this reporter had heard Fann jokingly chirping in Cantonese: 'Mo sat ngor lah, ngor yiu git fan, lah! (Don't kill me, I'm getting married!)' Her solemnisation ceremony with fellow actor Christopher Lee will be held on 16 May.

Tired from 20 takes

According to Mr Jimmy Low, a stunts and effects director from a local stunt company, The Stunt Production, there must be at least 3m between Zoe and Fann, or the latter would be injured.

Was Fann worried at all?

The bride-to-be was breathless when she replied: 'No, I was too pre-occupied and tired from the running. I think we did the scene 20 times. I couldn't think of anything else.'

Zoe, on the other hand, was confident that Fann wouldn't be injured by the gunshots. She explained: 'We made it very clear that Fann would always be on my left, while I would only shoot to my right.'

This wasn't the only physically and emotionally exhausting scene for Zoe in the drama being touted by MediaCorp as 'the blockbuster for 2009'.

For three days last week, Zoe and co-star Li Nanxing filmed in a yacht in international waters.

Zoe recalled: 'It looks glamorous on-screen but do you know how choppy the sea was? My character was hysterical and shot Nanxing. I felt giddy and like I wasn't getting enough oxygen. I was really weak at the end of filming.'

Zoe also had to pop pills to prevent herself from getting sea sick.

The mother of two toddlers recounted one scene where Nanxing jumped off the harbour and hung on to a rope as the yacht dragged him in the water.

Sounds tough? Zoe did an even harder stunt 12 years ago. A car that she was in was picked up by a crane and dropped into the sea. As she sank towards the bottom, divers were on standby to save her.

But Zoe claimed that she had forgotten all about it until the EP reminded her recently. The drama, Rising Expectations, was also the last time that Zoe played a vengeful character as bad as Yuchen.

'I'm quite tired after four days of intense filming and I'm surprised that I can still continue working. I get excited when I come to work, especially when all the scenes are building up in suspense to a finale.'

She later added that she'll film scenes where she kills off other characters in the drama.

This article was first published in The New Paper