Chinese actress Li Bingbing gets a buzz from 'Resident Evil' role

Just like in a Hollywood film, her big break came after a run of rejections when she was least expecting it. So award-winning mainland actress Li Bingbing was still buzzing from landing her breakthrough turn in Resident Evil: Retribution at the film's local premiere on Wednesday night.

"I'd auditioned for a few Hollywood productions, including G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and the James Bond series, but they didn't work out. So when I got the audition for Resident Evil, I didn't get my hopes up ," Li said at the W hotel before the premiere.

"They had someone in Beijing take a video of me performing a scene. I was given a long excerpt of the script filled with scientific jargon that I'm not too familiar with."

Three days after the video was sent, Li was hired to play special agent Ada Wong.

Having starred in a string of action-packed movies, Li was not intimidated by the choreography. "I told Paul [Anderson, the film's director] I would love to do more action scenes, but he said we'd have to wait for the next film."

So has she already signed up for the next instalment?