Because she has one hell of an agent for getting her from a reality show to all these high-budget films. Good for her, but out of the thousands of young actresses, it's pretty incredible how far she's gone without any family connections and less-than spectacular acting skills.
I saw this girl next to me who wasn't beautiful until she smiled. -Basketball Diaries
I came to her imdb just to ask the same thing. How does she have a acting career in high-budget films when others are still waiting tables?
The only conclusion I can come up with is this: Casting couch.
It's not like she jumped right into huge, big budget movies. She worked her way up from supporting parts in crappy tv shows to supporting parts in crappy movies. Now she's getting supporting parts in big budget movies.
The reason that she gets so many roles now is because she has made herself the go-to young Asian actress in Hollywood. Now, anytime a young Asian actress is needed for a movie, I'm sure her name is brought up right away.
The problem is that there aren't really many decent roles for Asian actresses in Hollywood so she'll probably be stuck with supporting roles for the rest of her life.