Angelica Lee Sin-Je looks cheerful as she appears for an interview at the Dusit Thani Hotel. Though 30, the Taiwan-based Malaysian actress looks younger - and more tanned - than in her movies.

What's even more surprising is her grasp of Thai - she clearly picked up quite a bit while filming "The Eye" here and its follow-up, the recently released "Re-Cycle".

"I've been to many places - Phuket, Koh Samui - everywhere is beautiful. I like Thailand so much!" she says in Thai.

"Re-Cycle", which reunites her with the director brothers Oxide and Danny Pang, has got off to a great start, having been selected in spring to close the Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard segment. It then broke the Hong Kong box-office record for a horror film, earning the equivalent of Bt66.6 million.

"Unlike 'The Eye', 'Re-Cycle' involves many encounters with ghosts," Lee says. "I had to act alone a lot in front of a green screen. There was a lot of pressure and I was worried about being able to hold the viewer's attention."

Lee portrays Ting-yin, a novelist struggling with her next book. She begins to think her apartment is haunted, and sure enough enters a mysterious world and meets characters she's created and abandoned.

The only escape is with the help of an old man (played by Lau Siu Ming) and a little girl (Tsang Nga Kei).

The Pang brothers' efforts since "The Eye" in 2002 have been disappointing, but "Re-Cycle" - shot for Bt200 million - is a return to form in terms of creativity, set design and the use of computer graphics.

The movie earned the Best Creative Film award when Hong Kong critics handed out their Golden Bauhinias earlier this year.

Asked which scenes she finds most memorable, Lee mentions the "most horrible" shot - in "the bloody tunnel, vagina-like, with embryos of different sizes and shapes hanging from above and claws on the floor.

"It's so real, horrible and disgusting!"

She also had a fretful time shooting in a Chinese cemetery.

"I was thinking of my own ancestors, who I hadn't been to visit for years, and wondered whether they could even remember me or not."

Lee's success in the fright flicks "The Eye", "Koma" and "Re-Cycle" has won her the title of "horror queen" in the Chinese news media.

"The horror genre needs actors who can convey a scary atmosphere fully, and my big eyes are an advantage," she says.

Lee was still in high school in Malaysia when Taiwanese director Sylvia Chang discovered her in a "newcomer" singing contest. She was signed by Rock Records in Taiwan and appeared in several TV commercials before releasing an album and then shifting to film.

Her screen debut was in "Sunshine Cops", but it took "The Eye" to make her a star.

She's tried her hand at writing a screenplay with the drama-comedy "20:30:40", but her goal is to direct.

Next up for Lee the actress is a return home for a still-untitled Chinese-Malaysian co-production, a historical movie about Sun Yat-sen's sojourn in Penang.

Parinyaporn Pajee

The Nation