Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6578
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Hoon Lee works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Hoon Lee appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hoon. Saving Face is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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, comedy, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with J.J. Perry, Niki Caro, David Koepp and others, Hoon Lee 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.
Saving Face (2004) as Raymond Wong · Mulan (2020) as Village Magistrate · We Own the Night (2007) as Emergency Services Driver
Career snapshot
Ranked #6578 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2004–2024
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Saving Face
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Saving Face
Most frequent director
J.J. Perry
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With J.J. Perry
Most common genre
Action
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 43m
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
2000s
7.0 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. We Own the Night, Saving Face — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
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
2000s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. We Own the Night, Saving Face.
Most productive era
2020s
3 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.02 films | — | — |
| Action | — | 6.41 film | 6.62 films |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | 6.41 film | 6.41 film |
| Comedy | 7.21 film | — | 6.52 films |
| Crime | 6.71 film | 6.41 film | — |
| Romance | 7.21 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2004Saving Face
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Raymond Wong. 7.2 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
The current state of the argument, as Goyang.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Raymond Wong
Directed by Alice Wu
as Emergency Services Driver
Directed by Unknown
as Goyang
Directed by J.J. Perry
as Jade Emperor / Monk (voice)
Directed by Unknown
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
Raymond Wong
Saving Face (2004)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Raymond Wong gives Hoon Lee a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Village Magistrate
Mulan (2020)
Performance score6.7
Mulan asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Village Magistrate is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Emergency Services Driver
We Own the Night (2007)
Performance score6.6
We Own the Night asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Emergency Services Driver is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Goyang
The Killer's Game (2024)
Performance score6.5
The Killer's Game asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Goyang 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 Raymond Wong
Start here. Saving Face is the clearest statement of what Hoon Lee does — accessible, 97 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Hoon 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.
We Own the Night (2007)
Keeps the drama register of Saving Face but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mulan (2020)
A deliberate change of key after We Own the Night — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Monkey King (2023)
Keeps the fantasy register of Mulan but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Killer's Game (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of The Monkey King but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Alice Wu
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Saving FaceNiki Caro
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MulanJ.J. Perry
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Killer's GameDavid Koepp
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Premium RushSix 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
Saving Face
as Raymond Wong
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Saving Face
as Raymond Wong
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Saving Face
as Raymond Wong
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
We Own the Night
as Emergency Services Driver
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Saving Face
as Raymond Wong
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. Hoon Lee 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
20 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
Saving Face
as Raymond Wong
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
We Own the Night
as Emergency Services Driver
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Saving Face
as Raymond Wong
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
We Own the Night
as Emergency Services Driver
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mulan
as Village Magistrate
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mulan
as Village Magistrate
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Monkey King
as Jade Emperor / Monk (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Premium Rush
as Floor Manager
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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