Chinese actress Vicki Zhao had a miserable, really miserable, winter in China late last year.

The usually vivacious Zhao had been cast in the Hong Kong fantasy action film Painted Skin, which opened in Singapore last Friday.

She stars as Peirong, the despairing wife of a general (Chen Kun) bewitched by a demonic temptress (Zhou Xun).

And it seemed that Zhao had to live her lonely character's life offscreen too as she was ignored by director Gordon Chan and his team after hours.

'They didn't comfort me. They didn't joke with me. I felt left out. They left me in this state,' the 32-year-old said on the telephone from Beijing. 'I was uncomfortable and terrified during the two months I was filming.'

As the cast and crew filmed in the desert in the northern region of Ningxia and in the Hengdian studio in the eastern province of Zhejiang, she felt like an outcast both on- and off-camera.

Her family had to fly in to keep her company.

Only later did she realise that the team had cold-shouldered her to help her get in character.

Well, it worked, she said.

'I was in pain. I was in more pain than the director. All the tears the audience saw were real.'

Painted Skin, which is Hong Kong's entry for the 2009 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is based on a story of the same title from the Chinese classic Strange Tales From A Chinese Studio.

In the original cautionary tale, a man has an affair with a lovely lone female traveller, only to discover she is a demon dressed in a painted human skin.

When he has his heart ripped out by the monster, his virtuous wife has to go to great lengths to revive him.

The film has a more insidious plot, however: The demon wants to win the man's heart - metaphorically - and to replace his wife.

Either way, the role of the unhappy wife is an unlikely one for Zhao, who is more famous for playing the chirpy adventuress, Little Swallow, in the mammoth television hit, 1998's My Fair Princess.

In her other bigscreen outing this year in the epic Red Cliff, she portrays Sun Shangxiang, a high-spirited wannabe warrior - a character close in temperament to Little Swallow.

So why did Zhao sign up for Painted Skin and months of misery?

Director Chan 'provoked me', she said. 'He thought it was something I might not be able to do. It provoked me to accept the challenge.'

Musing on the difficult decisions her character has to make in a love triangle, she said: 'I couldn't handle it as well as her. She is a character I could learn from.'

Faced with a similar situation in her love life, she said: 'I would have roamed the world.'

Then she caught herself and added: 'I haven't been married so I can be casual about it.'

Zhao has been linked in the tabloids to Chinese table-tennis star Wang Liqin. But she denied the rumours of a romance.

She said: 'That's all rubbbish. We are good friends. I wouldn't not go out with my friends because people are taking photos.

'As to whether our relationship will develop, Heaven hasn't given me any hints yet.'

• Painted Skin is now showing in cinemas.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Oct 3, 2008.