Lucy Liu has just finished shooting vampire vengeance horror Rise. Lucy Liu has just finished being starkers. "The day before I was supposed to sign the contract, they mentioned that there was a phrase in there," she recalls. "It said, 'There will be European nudity.' I was like, 'What is this? I'm not going to sign this! What's European nudity?'"

So what does it mean? "What it meant, basically, is that Europeans are open and free - so much more relaxed about nudity." Which means...? "There's frontal nudity."

Liu fans, though, will have to keep on waiting for now: Rise doesn't even have a release date in the UK yet. What it does have is writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez, who penned (whisper it) Gothika, and the promise that Rise is drenched through with bloody horror. As an avenging angel of death, Liu stalks the streets as a reporter murdered by a fang-club cult, wreaking brutal havoc on those who wronged her. "She's seeking revenge," explains the actress, "so there's an incredible emotional value in anything that's happening in the movie. It has to have that. Otherwise it's just surface."

Total Film, for one, will be watching specifically for the emotional value.