china star Zhou xun (jue)

Zhou Xun is an internationally acclaimed Chinese actress and singer. She is regarded as one of the "Four Young Dan actresses" in China (四小花旦) in the early 2000s, along with Zhang Ziyi, Xu Jinglei and Zhao Wei.

Zhou Xun was born to a middle-class family. Her father, Zhou Tianning (周天宁), was a local film projectionist and her mother, Chen Yiqin (陈以琴), a salesperson at a department store.

Zhou Xun later enrolled at the Zhejiang Arts Institute (浙江省藝術學校), a decision which her parents initially objected as they wanted her to graduate from a university. Nonetheless, Zhou Xun fought to further her interest in the dramatic arts and was accepted.

While she was in her teens and schooling, she was handpicked for a role in a movie Strange Tales Amongst Old and Desolate Tombs《古墓荒斋》.

Zhou Xun caught international attention through her roles in Lou Ye's Suzhou River in 2000 (Best Actress, 15th Paris Film Festival) and Dai Sijie's film adaptation of the book of same name Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress in 2002.

In 2002, she starred in the television series remake of Jin Yong's martial arts novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes (射鵰英雄傳) as "Huang Rong" with actor Li Yapeng as her male lead. The series was one of the most watched in mainland China in 2003.

Zhou Xun then successfully entered the Hong Kong film market in Peter Chan's musical film Perhaps Love in 2005. This role won her the "Best Actress" award in the Hong Kong Film Awards, Hong Kong Film Critic's Society Awards, Golden Bauhinia Awards, Golden Horse Awards, Beijing Student Film Festival and Hangzhou Student Film Festival.

Aside from acting, she has also released two solo albums Summer (夏天) in 2003 and Come Across (偶遇) in 2005, in addition to singing for several motion picture soundtracks including Baober In Love, Xin Bian Guo Le Xi San Meng You Xian Jing, and Perhaps Love.

After Perhaps Love, her next martial arts project was Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet, in which she played a supporting role. Her singing was also featured in the movie and on the soundtrack. [1] [2]

Zhou's next effort was Susie Au's 2007 film Ming Ming, in which she played the title character who is in love with "D" and "Na Na", who has also fallen in love with D. The film won high praise at the 2006 Pusan International Film Festival held in South Korea. On the day of the film release, she also released her new music video, the song of which is the theme song of her film Ming Ming.[3][4]

Zhou Xun can currently be seen in the Beijing Film Academy professor Cao Baoping directed romantic thriller, The Equation of Love and Death in which she plays the role of a taxicab driver on the lookout for her missing boyfriend. The film was shot in the southern Yunnan province of China [5][6], and opens in August of 2008. She also plays the lead in Painted Skin, a remake of a classical supernatural thriller of the same name. Zhou Xun can be seen next in the urban romantic comedy All About Women which was directed by Tsui Hark.