Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3719
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Sung Kang represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Sung is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Sung Kang appears in 18 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sung. Raya and the Last Dragon is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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, adventure, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with George Huang, Louis Leterrier, Don Hall and others, Sung Kang 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.
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) as Dang Hai (voice) · Fast X (2023) as Han · Furious 7 (2015) as Han Lue (archive footage)
Career snapshot
Ranked #3719 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
18
1999–2024
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Raya and the Last Dragon
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Raya and the Last Dragon
Most frequent director
Justin Lin
5 films together
Longest collaboration
5×
With Justin Lin
Most common genre
Action
16 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.6
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
6.7 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Weekend in Taipei, Fast X, Raya and the Last Dragon — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.7
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Mystery Men.
Most productive era
2000s
7 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.74 films | — | 6.01 film |
| Action | 5.91 film | 6.55 films | 6.74 films | 6.76 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.64 films | 6.74 films | 6.82 films |
| Comedy | 5.91 film | — | — | 5.91 film |
| Crime | — | 6.63 films | 6.74 films | 6.73 films |
| Romance | — | 6.91 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1999Mystery Men
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Susie.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.8 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 Kwang.
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.
18 of 18 films
as Dang Hai (voice)
Directed by Don Hall
as Han
Directed by Louis Leterrier
as Han Lue
Directed by Justin Lin
as Kwang
Directed by George Huang
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
Dang Hai (voice)
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dang Hai (voice) gives Sung Kang a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Han
Fast X (2023)
Performance score7.1
Fast X asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Han is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Han Lue (archive footage)
Furious 7 (2015)
Performance score7.1
Furious 7 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Han Lue (archive footage) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Han Lue
Fast Five (2011)
Performance score7.1
Fast Five asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Han Lue 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 Dang Hai (voice)
Start here. Raya and the Last Dragon is the clearest statement of what Sung Kang does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sung 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.
Fast Five (2011)
Keeps the action register of Raya and the Last Dragon but asks for a colder reading of it.
Furious 7 (2015)
Keeps the action register of Fast Five but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fast X (2023)
Keeps the action register of Furious 7 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Weekend in Taipei (2024)
Keeps the action register of Fast X but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Justin Lin
Director
5 films together
Notably Fast Five
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Pearl Harbor
Denzel Washington
Director
1 film together
Notably Antwone Fisher
Philip G. Atwell
Director
1 film together
Notably War
Len Wiseman
Director
1 film together
Notably Live Free or Die Hard
Vin Diesel
Director
1 film together
Notably Los Bandoleros
Walter Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Bullet to the Head
James Wan
Director
1 film together
Notably Furious 7
Robert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together
Notably We Can Be Heroes
Don Hall
Director
1 film together
Notably Raya and the Last Dragon
Louis Leterrier
Director
1 film together
Notably Fast X
George Huang
Director
1 film together
Notably Weekend in Taipei
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Justin Lin
Director
5 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 5 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Fast FiveDon Hall
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Raya and the Last DragonLouis Leterrier
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fast XJames Wan
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Furious 7Michael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pearl HarborDenzel Washington
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Antwone FisherLen Wiseman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Live Free or Die HardGeorge Huang
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Weekend in TaipeiPhilip G. Atwell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WarVin Diesel
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Los BandolerosRobert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
We Can Be HeroesWalter Hill
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bullet to the HeadSix 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
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Dang Hai (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Antwone Fisher
as Receptionist
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Dang Hai (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Mystery Men
as Susie
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Dang Hai (voice)
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. Sung Kang 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
25 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
16 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
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Dang Hai (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Fast X
as Han
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Antwone Fisher
as Receptionist
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Dang Hai (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Dang Hai (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Weekend in Taipei
as Kwang
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Dang Hai (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Fast X
as Han
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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