Photograph for TIME by Russel Wong; jewels courtesy of Cartier

Two lovely, vivacious girls, members of the "educated youth," grow into their teens in a 1970s China torn by Mao's Cultural Revolution. One girl is fictional, though her story has the sad ring of truth. Wen Xiu, the protagonist of Yan Geling's 1995 novel Tian Yu (Celestial Bath), is the daughter of a Chengdu tailor. Like some 7 million other youngsters, Wen Xiu, whom her family calls Xiu Xiu, is "sent down" into rural Sichuan to learn from the heroic peasantry. What she learns are lessons in venality and pain. Befriended by a Tibetan herder, Xiu Xiu is brutally misused by Chinese officials. She never escapes her youth.

The other teenage girl, Chen Chong, is real, though her story sounds like Hollywood fantasy. The daughter of Shanghai doctors, she stars in her first film, wins a Best Actress prize at 19 and goes to college in the U.S. As Joan Chen, she plays the spoiled royal wife in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, an alluring businesswoman in David Lynch's Twin Peaks, a doomed Vietnamese mother in Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth. She makes onscreen love to Anne Heche and lots of bad movies with the likes of Rutger Hauer and Steven Seagal. Tired of being a China doll in rough Hollywood hands, Chen returns home to direct her first film, a stark telling of the first girl's life. Xiu Xiu: The Sent-down Girl does not please the Chinese authorities, but it wins citations around the world--seven Golden Horse awards, the Chinese-language Oscars, including best actor, actress, film, script and director.

Chen, the blessed child, might seem to have little in common with Xiu Xiu, a child of tragedy. But in any story of Chinese womanhood there are struggles and complexities. As Xiu Xiu became the plaything of low- and middle-level Chinese officials, Chen was toyed with by Western directors to fit the standard-issue image of the Asian woman. Though she was not "sent down" to Tibet, Chen did spend an arduous month there shooting Xiu Xiu; she describes it as "an assault course." And as Xiu Xiu bartered for her future with army officers, so Chen dissembled to be true to her vision. "I tried to hide the fact to China that I was making a film," she says. "I lied and lied. They would come talk to me, and I would deny it, saying, 'No, no, no.'"

When Xiu Xiu premiered at last year's Berlin Film Festival, the secret was out, the picture's metaphor crystal clear: that Maoist officials defiled a bright generation of Chinese youth. (One rapacious fellow looks exactly like Chairman Mao.) The censors' verdict was swift. "I was banned from working in China for one year," Chen notes, "and told to pay a fine of 10% of the budget." The film cost $1 million, much of it out of Chen's pocket. "I do recognize that I filmed illegally in China, and I formally promise, in TIME magazine, that I'll never do it again. That's my apology."

Chen, 38, need apologize to no one else. Her film is a delicate, harrowing epic in miniature, with an artist's attention to the harsh allure of physical and psychological landscapes. Xiu Xiu would be memorable if only for its lead performers: Lu Lu, an elfin charmer whom Chen found studying English in San Francisco, and the Tibetan actor Lopsang. But Xiu Xiu is more than a star-is-born showcase. This story of a girl who rolls down the slope of degradation and finally has no power but to choose her own grim fate, is a worthy cinematic sister to Mouchette, Robert Bresson's great document of adolescent despair. It is also exciting as emotional autobiography--a declaration of independence from an artist who felt trapped straddling East and West.

Chen was once the busiest actor in the whole Chinese diaspora. Now it is clear that her striking beauty--the searchlight eyes, long, strong neck and the most luscious mouth on either side of the Pacific--is merely the wrapping for surpassing talent and drive. "Working with her," says Bertolucci, "I had the feeling she was somehow in exile, not always comfortable. So I love the idea that my own Empress in exile went back to China as a film director."

Xiu Xiu begins her adventure as if it will be the coolest summer camp. Her tailor father sews blouses for his girl; her mother provides sensible advice. The family's easy warmth seems endearingly ordinary here. By the end of the film it will be a miraculous memory that Xiu Xiu can barely touch without getting burned.

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