Zhou achieved breakthrough with her performance in the film Soul Mate, based on the novel of the same name by Anni Baobei. Zhou received the Best Actress award at the 53rd Golden Horse Awards together with her Soul Mate co-star Sandra Ma, and also won Best Actress at the 28th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award. The same year, she won the Best Actress award at the 8th Macau International Movie Festival for her performance in the film Never Said Goodbye. Zhou also starred in her first television series, spy war drama Sparrow. The series was commercially successful, and became the highest rated war drama to date with a peak rating of 2.46 and 11 billion online views. Zhou was praised by both the audience and Director for successfully tackling a challenging role.