Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#36173
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Chris Tashima represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Chris is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Chris Tashima appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Chris. A Nightmare on Elm Street is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, fantasy, documentary. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Denise Chan, Richard Donner, John G. Avildsen and others, Chris Tashima helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as Boy in Nancy's English Class (uncredited) · Lethal Weapon (1987) as Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited) · The Karate Kid Part II (1986) as The Rockabilly Club Dancer (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #36173 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1984–2023
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Average Nutevio score
5.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Most frequent director
Denise Chan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Denise Chan
Most common genre
Action
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 19m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.5
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1980s
6.7 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Lethal Weapon, The Karate Kid Part II, Once Bitten — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
6.7
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
6.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Lethal Weapon, The Karate Kid Part II, Once Bitten.
Most productive era
1980s
5 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1980s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.52 films | — |
| Action | 6.92 films | 5.71 film |
| Thriller | 7.31 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.22 films | — |
| Crime | 7.31 film | — |
| Romance | 6.52 films | — |
| Horror | 6.72 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Boy in Nancy's English Class (uncredited). 7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2023Kodama
The current state of the argument, as Hiro.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
7 of 7 films
as Boy in Nancy's English Class (uncredited)
Directed by Wes Craven
as Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited)
Directed by Richard Donner
as The Rockabilly Club Dancer (uncredited)
Directed by John G. Avildsen
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Boy in Nancy's English Class (uncredited)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Boy in Nancy's English Class (uncredited) gives Chris Tashima a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited)
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Performance score7.2
Lethal Weapon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Hiro
Kodama (2023)
Performance score6.5
Kodama asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hiro is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self
Searching for Anna May Wong (2020)
Performance score6.5
Searching for Anna May Wong asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Boy in Nancy's English Class (uncredited)
Start here. A Nightmare on Elm Street is the clearest statement of what Chris Tashima does — accessible, 91 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Chris at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
The Karate Kid Part II (1986)
A deliberate change of key after A Nightmare on Elm Street — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Keeps the action register of The Karate Kid Part II but asks for a colder reading of it.
Searching for Anna May Wong (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Lethal Weapon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Kodama (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Searching for Anna May Wong — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Wes Craven
Director
1 film together
Notably A Nightmare on Elm Street
Rob Reiner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sure Thing
Howard Storm
Director
1 film together
Notably Once Bitten
John G. Avildsen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Karate Kid Part II
Richard Donner
Director
1 film together
Notably Lethal Weapon
Denise Chan
Director
1 film together
Notably Searching for Anna May Wong
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Wes Craven
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Nightmare on Elm StreetRichard Donner
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lethal WeaponJohn G. Avildsen
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Karate Kid Part IIRob Reiner
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Sure ThingHoward Storm
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Once BittenDenise Chan
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Searching for Anna May WongSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Lethal Weapon
as Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Karate Kid Part II
as The Rockabilly Club Dancer (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
A Nightmare on Elm Street
as Boy in Nancy's English Class (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Lethal Weapon
as Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
A Nightmare on Elm Street
as Boy in Nancy's English Class (uncredited)
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Chris Tashima has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
39 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Action Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in action, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
A Nightmare on Elm Street
as Boy in Nancy's English Class (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Lethal Weapon
as Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Karate Kid Part II
as The Rockabilly Club Dancer (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Lethal Weapon
as Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Lethal Weapon
as Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Lethal Weapon
as Fire Rescue Attendant (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Sure Thing
as Frat Guy at Punch Bowl (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Karate Kid Part II
as The Rockabilly Club Dancer (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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