IX Best Thing

- Jocelyn Lee

Singaporeans best remember Ix Shen as the super cool 1995 Star Search champion whose time in the spotlight here was overshadowed by the more glamorous Christopher Lee, who came in second in the talent search. In 2009, Ix, who dated former actress Ericia Lee for seven years back in the noughties, left Singapore for China to further his acting career. And eight years on, the actor has finally made some inroads there, albeit not in front of the camera. The 46-year-old was recently involved in the production of action blockbuster Wolf Warrior 2, taking on the role of executive director for six months. “What an executive director does is to present and put together what you see on screen. Sometimes, I help to make decisions if the director is preoccupied or not around,” he says about his job scope. The movie, directed by Chinese actor Wu Jing, who also stars in it, is about a soldier who protects medical aid workers from local rebels in Africa. To date, the film has raked in a whopping $797.4million (S$1.09billion) in China, making it the country’s top-grossing film of all time. Ix lets on that he got the job through a referral and that he didn’t go through any interviews. He says that his ability to communicate in English, Mandarin and Cantonese with the multi-national crew and cast, as well as his decades of experience in showbiz, helped him bag the job. He tells us over the phone from Phuket, where he’s on vacation for three weeks, that he sees himself doing more behind-the-scenes work in the future, especially after the immense success of