Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#17711
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Raymond Ma represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 37 years in, and Raymond is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Raymond Ma appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Raymond. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 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 drama, history, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Destin Daniel Cretton, Nahnatchka Khan, James Bobin and others, Raymond Ma 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.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) as Gang Leader · Calling (2020) as Man · The Paper Tigers (2020) as Sifu Wong
Career snapshot
Ranked #17711 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1986–2023
Career length
37 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Most frequent director
Todd Phillips
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Todd Phillips
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 34m
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
6.5
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
2020s
6.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Sight, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Calling — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.8
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
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. The Karate Kid Part II.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.51 film | — | 6.21 film | 0.01 film | 6.53 films |
| Action | 6.51 film | 6.61 film | — | — | 7.12 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.61 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.23 films | 6.72 films | 6.71 film |
| Crime | — | 6.61 film | 6.02 films | — | — |
| Romance | 6.51 film | — | — | 6.61 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Cab Driver in Okinawa.
Career peak
2020Calling
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2021Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2023Sight
The current state of the argument, as Zhensheng.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Gang Leader
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
as Sifu Wong
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.
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The defining work
#1
Man
Calling (2020)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Man gives Raymond Ma a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Gang Leader
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Performance score7.3
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gang Leader is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Zhensheng
Sight (2023)
Performance score6.6
Sight asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Zhensheng is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sifu Wong
The Paper Tigers (2020)
Performance score6.6
The Paper Tigers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sifu Wong 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 Man
Start here. Calling is the clearest statement of what Raymond Ma does — accessible, 14 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Raymond 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.
Always Be My Maybe (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Calling — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Paper Tigers (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of Always Be My Maybe but asks for a colder reading of it.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Keeps the action register of The Paper Tigers but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sight (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Todd Phillips
Director
2 films together
Notably Old School
John G. Avildsen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Karate Kid Part II
Richard Donner
Director
1 film together
Notably Lethal Weapon 4
James Bobin
Director
1 film together
Notably The Muppets
Nahnatchka Khan
Director
1 film together
Notably Always Be My Maybe
Destin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together
Notably Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Todd Phillips
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Old SchoolDestin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten RingsJames Bobin
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 MuppetsNahnatchka Khan
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Always Be My MaybeRichard Donner
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lethal Weapon 4John 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 IISix 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
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Gang Leader
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 Cab Driver in Okinawa
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Gang Leader
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Gang Leader
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Calling
as Man
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. Raymond Ma 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
37 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
6 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
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Gang Leader
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Gang Leader
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 Cab Driver in Okinawa
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Gang Leader
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Gang Leader
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Gang Leader
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Muppets
as Elderly Asian Man
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Karate Kid Part II
as Cab Driver in Okinawa
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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