Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#60334
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Lee Yang-hee 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.
Lee Yang-hee appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lee. Citizen of a Kind 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, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, drama, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kim Jee-woon, Yu Woo-il, Moon Hyun-sung and others, Lee Yang-hee 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.
Citizen of a Kind (2024) as Lawyer · Cicada (2022) as Duk-bae · The Man Standing Next (2020) as Congressman Kim
Career snapshot
Ranked #60334 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2018–2026
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Citizen of a Kind
Average Nutevio score
4.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Citizen of a Kind
Most frequent director
Kim Jee-woon
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Kim Jee-woon
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
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
6.1
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
2020s
4.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Living Through the Same Season, Playing With Fire in Water, Citizen of a Kind — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
4.8
Across 10 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
4.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Pepper.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 0.01 film | 4.87 films |
| Action | — | 6.51 film |
| Thriller | — | 7.11 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.83 films |
| Crime | — | 7.02 films |
| Romance | — | 3.02 films |
| Horror | — | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2018Pepper
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Noah's Father.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2022Cicada
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
2026Living Through the Same Season
The current state of the argument.
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.
11 of 11 films
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
Duk-bae
Cicada (2022)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Duk-bae gives Lee Yang-hee a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lawyer
Citizen of a Kind (2024)
Performance score7.3
Citizen of a Kind asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lawyer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Congressman Kim
The Man Standing Next (2020)
Performance score7.0
The Man Standing Next asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Congressman Kim is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kyung-seok
The Apartment with Two Women (2022)
Performance score6.6
The Apartment with Two Women asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kyung-seok 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 Duk-bae
Start here. Cicada is the clearest statement of what Lee Yang-hee does — accessible, 122 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lee 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 Man Standing Next (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Cicada but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Apartment with Two Women (2022)
Keeps the drama register of The Man Standing Next but asks for a colder reading of it.
Citizen of a Kind (2024)
A deliberate change of key after The Apartment with Two Women — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Living Through the Same Season (2026)
Same director as Citizen of a Kind, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Woo Min-ho
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man Standing Next
Kim Se-in
Director
1 film together
Notably The Apartment with Two Women
Moon Hyun-sung
Director
1 film together
Notably Seoul Vibe
Yu Woo-il
Director
1 film together
Notably Teatime with Mr.Park
Kim Jee-woon
Director
1 film together
Notably Cobweb
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Woo Min-ho
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Man Standing NextKim Se-in
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Apartment with Two WomenKim Jee-woon
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CobwebMoon Hyun-sung
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Seoul VibeYu Woo-il
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teatime with Mr.ParkSix 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
Cicada
as Duk-bae
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Endless Rain
as Father
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Cicada
as Duk-bae
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Citizen of a Kind
as Lawyer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Cicada
as Duk-bae
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. Lee Yang-hee 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Drama Legend
Awarded
8 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
Citizen of a Kind
as Lawyer
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Citizen of a Kind
as Lawyer
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Endless Rain
as Father
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Man Standing Next
as Congressman Kim
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Citizen of a Kind
as Lawyer
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Seoul Vibe
as CEO Lee
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Endless Rain
as Father
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Living Through the Same Season
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: family and comedy
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Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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