Fresh from her latest film project, Sylvia Chang may have discovered the secret

THE photographer said it best as he prepared to take pictures of actress-writer-director Sylvia Chang Ai-chia: 'I used to watch all your movies, and you haven't changed a bit. You still look as young as ever.' He has a good eye for detail, for the 44-year-old does not look a day older than the time audiences last saw her in Ang Lee's Eat Drink, Man Woman (1994) or even her own Sisters Of The World Unite! (1991). Her familiar piquant face is remarkably unlined and her eyes still sparkle with the promise of exuberance and youthful zeal.

'Before it was being in love, these days it is making films,' Chang says of her ability to keep young at heart.

And if she seems to look even younger these days, it can be put down to her having just finished a project that not only allowed her to make a film but also to relive the innocence and naivete of first love.

Chang's new film, Tempting Heart, which opens in Hong Kong on Thursday, casts Japanese-Chinese heart-throb Takeshi Kaneshiro as Ho-jun and Canto-pop singer Gigi Leung Wing-kei as Sheo-rou - young lovers torn apart physically by family and circumstances, but who retain a life-long emotional link.

'I always wonder why so many relationships end so uglily. If you can just hold on to the good moments, why can't you carry on being friends, like Sheo-rou and Ho-jun do in the film?' she asks.

Production notes say Chang wrote the film 'based, in part, on experiences of her own life' but stop short of calling it an autobiography. It is understandable, though, why people should find parallels between Sheo-rou and Chang.