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)