Tough act for 'pretty face'

Until City of Life and Death came along, Qin Lan was best known as the pretty and fragile face of romantic TV series.

But in this film on the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, Qin plays the tough Mrs Tang, wife of the secretary to John Rabe, the German businessman who set up a safety zone and protected 200,000 Chinese from the massacre.

Tang had only three lines and five scenes in the original script. Qin read many historical records and sent an e-mail to director Lu Chuan, suggesting that her character could be made more colorful.