Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#40269
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
David Yip represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and David is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
David Yip appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 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 quiet performance, transformation, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for crime, drama, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Elkin, Jon Amiel, Kenneth Branagh and others, David Yip 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.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) as Wu Han · Hamlet (1996) as Sailor One · Entrapment (1999) as Chief of Police
Career snapshot
Ranked #40269 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1984–2020
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Most frequent director
Michael Elkin
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Elkin
Most common genre
Drama
3 titles
Average runtime
2h 22m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.7
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
7.0 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. A View to a Kill, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.0
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
6.8
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. A View to a Kill, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Most productive era
1980s
2 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 | 1990s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.72 films | 6.01 film |
| Action | 7.02 films | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | — | 6.01 film |
| Romance | — | 6.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1984Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Wu Han. 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
2020Break
The current state of the argument, as Vincent Qiang.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Vincent Qiang
Directed by Michael Elkin
as Chief of Police
Directed by Jon Amiel
as Chuck Lee
Directed by John Glen
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Wu Han
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Wu Han gives David Yip a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Sailor One
Hamlet (1996)
Performance score6.9
Hamlet asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sailor One is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Vincent Qiang
Break (2020)
Performance score6.5
Break asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Vincent Qiang is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Chief of Police
Entrapment (1999)
Performance score6.5
Entrapment asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chief of Police 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 Wu Han
Start here. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the clearest statement of what David Yip does — accessible, 118 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet David 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.
A View to a Kill (1985)
Keeps the action register of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom but asks for a colder reading of it.
Hamlet (1996)
A deliberate change of key after A View to a Kill — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Entrapment (1999)
Keeps the drama register of Hamlet but asks for a colder reading of it.
Break (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Entrapment but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
John Glen
Director
1 film together
Notably A View to a Kill
Kenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together
Notably Hamlet
Jon Amiel
Director
1 film together
Notably Entrapment
Michael Elkin
Director
1 film together
Notably Break
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Indiana Jones and the Temple of DoomKenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HamletJon Amiel
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EntrapmentJohn Glen
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A View to a KillMichael Elkin
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BreakSix 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
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
as Wu Han
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Entrapment
as Chief of Police
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
as Wu Han
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Hamlet
as Sailor One
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
as Wu Han
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. David Yip 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
36 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Drama Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in drama, 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
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
as Wu Han
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
as Wu Han
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Entrapment
as Chief of Police
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Entrapment
as Chief of Police
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
as Wu Han
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
A View to a Kill
as Chuck Lee
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Break
as Vincent Qiang
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Break
as Vincent Qiang
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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