Film grants belated recognition to first Chinese Bond girl

Daughter of Peking Opera master Zhou Xinfang

"I was born in a costume trunk. My fate was tied to stage ever after", the actress said in the movie's trailer. Tsai Chin has drama running in her blood, as her father is Zhou Xinfang, a Peking Opera master who shared equal popularity with his contemporary, Mei Lanfang, as the spokesman of the Shanghai School.

She enjoyed acting as a child and her love for the stage won unstinting support from her mother, Qiu Lilin, a socialite who was the daughter of a well-to-do merchant family engaged in the jewelry and tea business.

Her father endowed her with the gift of acting while her mother always pushed her to make a career out of it. Her mother, a woman with a western educational background, kept spurring her on by instilling the importance of independence and hard work.

Tsai, aged 17, was on the cusp of adulthood when she bid farewell to her family and began her solo westward journey to the UK, where she made her way to RADA and became the school's first Chinese student.