"Everything in my life is a fluke. A lucky fluke," she says with a shrug. Hardly. As the daughter of Michael Chow, owner of the hip Mr. Chow restaurants in Beverly Hills, Manhattan, and London, and the late fashion designer Tina Chow, China inherited a natural instinct for what's cool and the natural assets to hit it big as a model while still in her teens. "Modeling was more fun than anything else. It wasn't really a career," she says before admitting that this non-career included major campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger, DKNY, and the Gap and hanging out at parties with the likes of Kate Moss and Julia Roberts.

     Then about three years ago, a friend-of-a-neighbor casting director rang her up, hunting for an actress to play a role in The Big Hit, a Mark Wahlberg gangster comedy. "The whole thing happened so quickly," she remembers. "When I showed up on location in Toronto to audition, I thought I was just going to be meeting a few people. Then they said, 'You can't go anywhere -- you're doing this movie. Roll the cameras!' I didn't have a chance to get freaked out.

     Even with no previous acting experience, China won favorable reviews. Playing a rich girl kidnapped by gangsters, she had to spend hours at a time tied up, gagged, and handcuffed. "When they would yell 'Cut,' the crew would ask me if I wanted my legs untied," she says. "It wasn't worth it because five minutes later I'd have to be tied up again. Then there was a scene where I got thrown into the trunk of a car and the trunk door slammed down on my head. Now, that hurt -- my brain bounced! But it was a blast."

     China won't say whether disorienting head injuries had anything to do with dating Wahlberg, but she does admit she's now single again: "And I'm not looking for anybody, either." Does this mean she's sworn off men? "I'm open to it. It's just that when you're looking, it never happens."

     It sounds like China is too busy to do much looking anyway, jetting between New York and Los Angeles working on new film projects. In the August release Head over Heels, China joins fellow models Shalom Harlow, Sarah O'Hare, and Ivana Milicevic, a pack of lovelies looking for a good time in Manhattan while being stalked by a literal lady-killer. "My character is a crass punk rocker," China says. "She's got dreadlocks and wears skintight leggings, belts with studs, Doc Martens, and T-shirts with tigers on them. She's a handful and an eyeful. Oh, and she's a lesbian art restorer."

     China isn't a lesbian or an art restorer, but only one of those fictional qualities meant sweaty girl-on-girl action. "I was worried about the sex scene," she laughs. "I was reading the script, and it said that my girlfriend and I are in bed 'going at it.' I was, like, 'Are we supposed to make out? Maybe I can just brush her hair and pull on it, and she can get off on that, like it's some weird fetish.' We ended up doing a take of a girl lying on top of me in her underwear and kissing my neck. The lights were hot, and it got kinda sticky." Compared to the hair thing, we think that was the right choice.

     "They also wanted me to make moaning noises into a microphone to add into the film later," China continues while even demonstrating -- convincingly -- her technique. "Then the director actually asked me to growl. Growl? I don't know anybody who actually growls in the bedroom, do you? Oh, wait, this is Maxim. Never mind."