Saram storms Hongkong movie scene

Characteristically, Saram, now 25, was not flustered at all by the attention. This might have had something to do with the fact that, until then, she did not know who Aaron Kwok was.

'I didn't even know what the job was and when someone told me I'd be acting opposite Aaron Kwok, I said 'who?' '

It did not get any better as it got closer to the day of filming the commercial: 'Aaron came into the studio with his entourage and I only managed to pick him out of the crowd because he was the flashiest.'

This sounds like affectation but it is not. The girl is just telling it like it is, and this may be why this straight-talking Communication Studies graduate of the Nanyang Technological University is such a hit with Hongkongers and Taiwanese.

'They find me very different. My Mandarin isn't that good. It's worse than even Kit Chan's and Mavis Hee's. But because I don't look Chinese, they are always surprised when I open my mouth,' she adds, referring to two of Singapore's other talent exports.

HOBNOBBING WITH HK HEARTTHROBS

SINCE her Aaron Kwok stint, Saram has gone on to star in the TVB millennium series Threshold Of An Era with heartthrob Louis Koo, and appear in the movie Bullets Over Summer, also with him. In between, she made an MTV video with Nicholas Tse.

Impressive stuff, especially since Saram confesses: 'I only spoke two words of Cantonese when I got to Hongkong.'

Her limited vocabulary has not hampered her meteoric rise to fame. On a notoriously-tough game show in Taiwan this year, she deflected barbs by just smiling.

'Actually I didn't really understand what they were saying, so I just sat there and smiled. After a while, they became quite helpful really.'

'Helpful' is also how Saram describes her latest leading man in Skyline Cruisers.

'Leon Lai is a really sweet-tempered guy,' she adds, recalling how he had helped her with her lines.

Jordan Chan, the other male lead in Skyline Cruisers, warmed up to her as well.

'I had never held a gun before so he showed me how to do it convincingly.' Holding Jordan's gun? Hmmm...

Shu Qi, Hongkong's Category Three actress-made-good, shares screen space as an infiltrator of a gang of professional thieves led by Lai.

'In the movie, I am supposed to have this very subtle 'thing' for Leon, and Shu Qi comes along and tries to win him over and break the gang up.'

Sorry, but there were no real catfights on the set to report of.

SINGER TURNS STUNTWOMAN

WITHOUT giving too much of the movie away, Saram will only say that the character she plays is close to what she is like in real life.

'I play a streetwise computer hacker, a newcomer but very garang!'

Living by her motto, 'Something new, let's try!' she loved the flying scenes in the movie where she was strapped in by cables and generally thrown about from a crane.

'In one scene, I had to leap out of the back of this 4X4 jeep, spin in mid-air, land, and then, wearing rollerblades, get dragged by the jeep.

'They needed close-ups so I had to do it myself,' she explains when asked why a stuntman was not called upon for the job.

In another gritty scene, she had to lie in the dirt (all strapped up again) and get run over by a jeep.

In that scene, she had to shoot the bad guys from a prone position. In one take, the undercarriage of the vehicle was so close, it managed to twist her wrists, leaving them swollen and very painful.

It is some relief then that her current project is a quiet period Chinese melodrama shot in China for TV.

In it, she plays a princess who spouts fluent Mandarin. 'The dialogue is really long,' she says, adding that none of her speaking roles have ever been dubbed.

'I even have to use cheng yu, you know -- those four word things.'

You mean, idioms?

'Yes, Chinese idioms,' she adds, with a parting grin.

Maybe her Mandarin is improving, if not her Cantonese.

BIOBOX: A STAR IS BORN

1975: Michelle Saram is born, with the exotic looks of her Indian father and Chinese mother.

1981: She attends Katong Convent, where she picks up her Mandarin skills.

1993: She reads Communication Studies at the Nanyang Technological University.

1996: A short internship as a writer at Go Magazine leads her onto the road to modelling, when she is picked, unsuspectingly, to appear on the cover of the May issue.

1997: After signing up with Elite Singapore, the modelling agency sends her on an audition for a Hongkong TV commercial, which will prove to be the turning point in her career.

1998: Now a popular model, she becomes part of the gossip mill and is linked romantically to Aaron Kwok (just rumours) and model/actor David Lee (more than just rumours).

1999: She stars opposite Louis Koo as his sister in the Hongkong TVB epic, Threshold Of An Era. She becomes the target of the voracious Hongkong press who claim she came between Koo and his girlfriend. Saram has given up following the reports because, 'there are just too many rumours going about'. Another rumour even links her with Kevyn Verghese of Army Daze fame.

1999: Appears in Nicholas Tse's music video for his new album, Old Scar, firing off yet more rumours.

2000: Releases her first Mandarin solo album, Upfront, in May to mixed reviews while making an appearance in Bullets Over Summer, an action flick starring Louis Koo.

2000: Seals her movie-star status with a lead role in Skyline Cruisers, an action movie with Leon Lai, Jordan Chan and Shu Qi.