Rising Chinese actress Zhou Xun again plays two roles in
Mingming, the first film by veteran Hong Kong music video director
Susie Au, but said the roles were not particularly challenging.
Zhou, 31, whose recent work includes Dai Sijie's Balzac And
The Little Chinese Seamstress (2001), and who once played
lookalike girls in Lou Ye's Suzhou River (2000), was in
Beijing Thursday to promote the new film .
In Ming Ming, Zhou plays Mingming and Nana who look
alike, are both in love with hero Ah D but act and dress
differently: black-clothed Mingming boldly steals 5 million yuan
from a big shot businessman to give to Ah D while red-robed Nana
sneakily cheats for him.
"The acting challenged me a little because I had to switch roles
quickly," said Zhou, who won Best Actress award at both the 43rd
Golden Horse Awards and the 25th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2006 for
Peter Chan's musical Perhaps Love.
"Ming Ming is a modern girl skilled in kungfu, soft on the
outside but ruthless inside, whereas Nana is like many girls,
pretty and keen to love," she added. "Where they resemble each
other is in their determination to pursue the life they want and
the man they want, so their psychology is not too different."
Zhou had to spend three to four hours with the make-up assistant
each time she switched roles, said Au, director of many of the
music videos of Shirley Wong. "I was so worried that she would
become schizophrenic!."
"Mingming," scheduled for release in China on April 26, also
stars Taiwan love song prince Jeff Chang and Hong Kong A-list actor
Daniel Wu, and features a lot of dance-like action scenes, Au
said.
(Xinhua News Agency April 15, 2007)