Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16932
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Sammo Hung Kam-Bo represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 56 years in, and Sammo is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Sammo Hung Kam-Bo appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sammo. A Simple Life 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, action. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, drama, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kenji Tanigaki, Luo Yiwei, Frank Coraci and others, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo 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 Simple Life (2012) as Director Hung · Project A (1983) as Cheuk Yat Fei · Enter the Dragon (1973) as Shaolin Fighter (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #16932 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
1970–2026
Career length
56 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
A Simple Life
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
A Touch of Zen
Most frequent director
Robert Clouse
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Robert Clouse
Most common genre
Action
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
1970s
7.0 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Game of Death, Enter the Dragon, A Touch of Zen — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Game of Death, Enter the Dragon, A Touch of Zen.
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 | 1970s | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.51 film | — | — | 6.12 films | 5.82 films |
| Action | 7.03 films | 6.92 films | 6.01 film | — | 5.15 films |
| Thriller | 6.51 film | — | — | — | 6.02 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.92 films | 6.01 film | 4.71 film | — |
| Crime | — | — | — | — | 6.02 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1970A Touch of Zen
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Commander Xu's Bodyguard (uncredited).
Career peak
1983Project A
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2012A Simple Life
7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
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.
14 of 14 films
Directed by Unknown
as Cheuk Yat Fei
Directed by Jackie Chan
as Director Hung
Directed by Unknown
as Kidstuff / Fastbuck
Directed by Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
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
Kung Fu Stuntmen
Kung Fu Stuntmen (2021)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. The role gives Sammo Hung Kam-Bo a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Cheuk Yat Fei
Project A (1983)
Performance score7.6
Project A asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cheuk Yat Fei is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mr. Big
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024)
Performance score7.4
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Big is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Director Hung
A Simple Life (2012)
Performance score7.3
A Simple Life asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Director Hung 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
Start here. Kung Fu Stuntmen is the clearest statement of what Sammo Hung Kam-Bo does — accessible, 92 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sammo 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.
Project A (1983)
Keeps the action register of Kung Fu Stuntmen but asks for a colder reading of it.
Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars (1985)
Keeps the action register of Project A but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Simple Life (2012)
A deliberate change of key after Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024)
Same director as A Simple Life, 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.
Robert Clouse
Director
2 films together
Notably Enter the Dragon
King Hu
Director
1 film together
Notably A Touch of Zen
Jackie Chan
Director
1 film together
Notably Project A
Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
Director
1 film together
Notably Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars
Frank Coraci
Director
1 film together
Notably Around the World in 80 Days
Luo Yiwei
Director
1 film together
Notably Invincible Swordsman
Kenji Tanigaki
Director
1 film together
Notably The Living Dragon
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Robert Clouse
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Enter the DragonJackie Chan
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Project AKing Hu
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Touch of ZenLuo Yiwei
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Invincible SwordsmanSammo Hung Kam-Bo
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky StarsFrank Coraci
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Around the World in 80 DaysKenji Tanigaki
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Living DragonSix 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
A Simple Life
as Director Hung
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Simple Life
as Director Hung
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Enter the Dragon
as Shaolin Fighter (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Kung Fu Stuntmen
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. Sammo Hung Kam-Bo 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
56 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
11 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 Simple Life
as Director Hung
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
as Mr. Big
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Simple Life
as Director Hung
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Man on the Edge
as Master Kam
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Project A
as Cheuk Yat Fei
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Around the World in 80 Days
as Wong Fei Hung
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Game of Death
as Lo Chen
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Game of Death
as Lo Chen
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Sammo Hung Kam-Bo performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
