On January 30th, as her car was speeding along a regular road in China, Liu Dan was lying asleep in the back seats. All of a sudden, the driver of the car spied something in the road. Acting on instant reaction, he served quicky to the side of the road and hit a pole on the side of the road. Totally unconcious, Liu Dan flewed out of one of the windows in the car and died, instantly.

And just like that, the life of an up and coming actress ended. Liu Dan was not the most famous actress of the decade, but after acting as Sian Fai in Huan Zhu Ge Ge II, she left in everyone's mind of a deep image. Beautiful and talented, that was what first comes to mind when people think of her.

This is an article translated by a fan about Liu Dan's death. It explained more than I did so please read it!

Liu Dan (1975 - 2000)

Taiwan Serial Star

25-year-old Chinese actress Liu Dan was killed when she was run over after being flung out of a car, which had crashed into a fence beside the road.

CHINESE actress Liu Dan, 25, who played royal concubine Xiang Fei in the popular Taiwanese serial My Fair Princess II, died in a highway accident in China on Sunday.

According to Guangzhou's Yangcheng Wanbao, the driver of the Mercedes Benz she was in was trying to avoid a road barrier when he lost control and crashed the car into a fence on the side of the road.

The impact caused Liu, who was reportedly sleeping in the back seat at the time, to be flung out onto the highway, where she was run over by another car.

Liu was enroute from Shenzhen to join the other My Fair Princess cast members in a performance in the town of Pu Ning in Guangdong province when the accident occurred.

Lianhe Wanbao reported on Tuesday that actor Zhu Hongjia, who played Su Jian, the brother of the main character Little Swallow in the show, was with her at the time of accident. But he escaped with minor injuries.

My Fair Princess is the serial which propelled another Chinese actress, Vicky Zhao Wei, to international stardom for her portrayal of Little Swallow. Both the first and second season were shown here on Singapore Cable Vision.

A native of the north-eastern province of Harbin, Liu became a dancer and TV compere upon graduation from the Central Academy of Arts in China. She had just completed filming her second movie, Lovers' Holiday Hotel, scheduled to be screened on Feb 14 in cinemas throughout China.

When told of her death, the cast members of My Fair Princess expressed both shock and regret.

Actor Zhang Tie Lin, who played the emperor, said: "She had a lot of talent and it's sad to think she had to die so suddenly just when her career was taking off."

A simple memorial service was held before she was cremated in Shenzhen on Tuesday.