UrbanWire

Put together a 20-year-old funky sweetie pie (Stella Ng), a 30-year-old disillusioned lady (Ivy Lee) and a 40-year-old dissatisfied woman (Huang Biren) as the main leads in Beautiful Trio and we've a local rip-off version of the Sylvia Chang movie 20:30:40 showing in theatres now or the answer to the American show Sex and the City.

Beautiful Trio is the latest 20-episode drama from Channel 8 that chronicles 3 independent, modern women who cross paths in their course of work and became fast confidants to each other. Homegrown singer-songwriter Stella Ng who plays Sam (short for Samantha) admits in English that the drama is "like Sex and the City".

Ng's tomboyish role is a go-getter who grows up seeing brothers get preferential treatment. Hence, she's always looking for opportunities to prove that she is as good as, if not better, than guys. Her courier job and rock-climbing pastime are testament of her desire to excel and love of challenges. Chirpy and gung-ho, she provides the laughs whenever she hangs out with Chris (Huang Biren ) and Leo Leo (Ivy Lee).

Huang Biren is the sophisticated, reserved yet perpetually grumpy looking 40-year-old Christina, a general manager of an F&B multi-national company. She's married to Yingxiong (Li Wenhai, who played her dad in Home in Toa Payoh), a match made by her mother. Yingxiong, recently retrenched, is a meek, henpecked house husband. Despite a successful career and stable family life, Christina hungers for more excitement and real romance.

Enters Ivy Lee who plays Leo Leo, a sexy public relations manager. Leo Leo is an ex-lawyer who was humiliated when her ex-boyfriend publicised the private emails she wrote to him. Distraught, she turns to cosmetic surgery to regain her confidence and to forget her past. Now, she dates men she feels are of use to her, but her mother pressures her to settle down.

Stella is visibly delighted to reunite with Ivy and Biren at the press conference. She shares that she had "very fond memories" of the time spent recording late last year. She says in English, "It was as though we are 3 very close friends… all the girls' talk, all the banter, chatter and friendship were very real."

Biren describes her role as someone who has gone "out of track". She then philosophies that different people have different definitions to a happy marriage. A peaceful and mundane marriage can just be fulfilling as a marriage where romance plays a big part.

Ivy comments that her present look is "before surgery" and her "post surgery" look was created with a "prosthetic nose fitted and stuffing cotton balls between [her] lip and gums". She then jests that if she were to consider cosmetic surgery, she would like to put her ears under the knife as she has Mickey Mouse-like ears that stick out.

The thorn among the roses present at the press conference is Zzen Chang, who assumed the role of Colin, Sam's courier colleague who holds a torch for her. Playing a "courier by day, and a drag queen by night", Zzen reveals that he went to Boom Boom Room to learn and prepare for the role. Fervently assuring the reporters that he is "straight", Zzen goes on to joke that the show should be named "3½ women" instead.

With very real situations and topical issues like adoption, single-parenthood, men having second families, extra-marital affairs, office politics, depression and suicidal tendencies, Beautiful Trio is set to capture heartstrings of women and men alike. After all, it's essentially a drama about searching for love, something people never stop doing, whatever their age.