Rising Chinese mainland actress Zhou Xun on Tuesday appeared on set of a low-budget urban romance movie called The Encounters of Li Mi.

In the movie Zhou Xun plays a taxi driver in search of her missing boyfriend. Shooting is taking place in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, Southern Metropolis Daily reports.

Zhou, one of China's top actresses, most recently seen in Feng Xiaogang's historical epic The Banquet, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, has also appeared in Ming Ming, a movie about two look-alike women who flee from gangsters to seek a mysterious box.

Being asked why she chose an 8 million-yuan invested film as her latest project, the actress said that a low-budget film can offer her more space to explore herself.

Zhou won a best actress nod at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards for her portrayal of a movie star caught between her past and present lovers in the movie Perhaps Love.

(CRI.cn August 23, 2007)