That's Zhao, as In 'Oh, Wow!'

• Share

It's rare that you go to a restaurant and find your interview subject already at the red wine. No sooner do we sit down than Zhao Wei offers us a glass, then waits five minutes before prising the cigarettes from our hand. She talks casually about weight problems, paying tax bills and Penélope Cruz. It's like being down the pub with your best mate seeking shelter from a storm—in this case the wild winds of Zhao's cinematic success.

Zhao became an overnight sensation in greater China thanks to Princess Pearl, a popular Taiwanese TV show. Three months ago, a fashion magazine printed a photo of Zhao in a dress with a Japanese wartime flag on it. Big trouble in rather large China. After that, she was attacked during a singing performance in China. Zhao publicly apologized a week later; it's a strange world we live in when a starlet starts a cultural war. "My generation doesn't know much about the war. This serves as a lesson," she says, "Let's bury the hatchet and let bygones be bygones."

Zhao leaped to fame at 21 when she was plucked, like the younger Zhang Ziyi, from Beijing's prestigious Film Academy. She has been busy ever since. Hong Kong's comic genius, Stephen Chow, cast her for a part in Shaolin Soccer, Hong Kong's top-grossing film of all time. Corey Yuen's So Close is in the can. She's on screens now in Jeff Lau's Chinese Odyssey 2002, and has just finished working on Chinese director He Ping's Warriors of Heaven and Earth. She might even appear in Wong Kar-wai's as yet unfinished 2046.

Indeed, Zhao's as user-friendly as a Starbucks coffee shop. There's not the manufacture of Zhang Ziyi, the "wing collar" of Karen Mok, the Monroe of Shu Qi, or the candy-cute of Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi. She doesn't nurture distance with the audience. "She's just like a boy," says Wong Kar-wai. "She tells you everything directly, she talks from the heart. Very few people are born to be an actress, but she's one of them." Anyone for more wine?