Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1951
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Yoon Kyung-ho 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.
Yoon Kyung-ho appears in 24 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Yoon. The Book of Fish 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, 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, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ryoo Seung-wan, Park Chul-hwan, Nam Dae-joong and others, Yoon Kyung-ho 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.
The Book of Fish (2021) as Moon Soon-deok · MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission (2019) as Optician's Manager · Humint (2026) as Minister Yoon
Career snapshot
Ranked #1951 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
24
2017–2026
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
The Book of Fish
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
The Book of Fish
Most frequent director
Ryoo Seung-wan
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Ryoo Seung-wan
Most common genre
Drama
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 55m
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
6.3
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. Husbands in Action, Humint, The Ultimate Duo — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.8
Across 18 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
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Start-Up, MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission, Crazy Romance.
Most productive era
2020s
18 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 | 5.95 films | 7.27 films |
| Action | 7.12 films | 6.79 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.86 films |
| Comedy | 7.23 films | 6.78 films |
| Crime | — | 6.25 films |
| Romance | 6.81 film | 7.41 film |
| Horror | — | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2017Okja
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mirando Employee.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission
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
2026The Ultimate Duo
The current state of the argument, as Dong-oh.
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.
24 of 24 films
as Moon Soon-deok
Directed by Lee Joon-ik
as Optician's Manager
Directed by Eom Yu-na
as Minister Yoon
Directed by Ryoo Seung-wan
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
Moon Soon-deok
The Book of Fish (2021)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Moon Soon-deok gives Yoon Kyung-ho a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Optician's Manager
MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission (2019)
Performance score7.6
MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Optician's Manager is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Juror #3 - Jo Jin-sik
Juror 8 (2019)
Performance score7.5
Juror 8 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Juror #3 - Jo Jin-sik is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kim Yong-kang
Husbands in Action (2026)
Performance score7.4
Husbands in Action asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kim Yong-kang 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 Moon Soon-deok
Start here. The Book of Fish is the clearest statement of what Yoon Kyung-ho does — accessible, 126 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Yoon 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.
MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission (2019)
Keeps the drama register of The Book of Fish but asks for a colder reading of it.
Juror 8 (2019)
Keeps the drama register of MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission but asks for a colder reading of it.
Husbands in Action (2026)
Same director as Juror 8, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Humint (2026)
Keeps the action register of Husbands in Action but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ryoo Seung-wan
Director
3 films together
Notably Humint
Nam Dae-joong
Director
2 films together
Notably Love Reset
Bong Joon Ho
Director
1 film together
Notably Okja
Eom Yu-na
Director
1 film together
Notably MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission
Jang Yoo-jung
Director
1 film together
Notably Honest Candidate
Lee Joon-ik
Director
1 film together
Notably The Book of Fish
Moon Hyun-sung
Director
1 film together
Notably Seoul Vibe
Park Chul-hwan
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ultimate Duo
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ryoo Seung-wan
Director
3 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
HumintNam Dae-joong
Director
2 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Love ResetLee Joon-ik
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Book of FishEom Yu-na
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MAL·MO·E: The Secret MissionBong Joon Ho
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
OkjaMoon 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 VibeJang Yoo-jung
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Honest CandidatePark Chul-hwan
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Ultimate DuoSix 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
The Book of Fish
as Moon Soon-deok
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 Book of Fish
as Moon Soon-deok
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission
as Optician's Manager
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Okja
as Mirando Employee
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Book of Fish
as Moon Soon-deok
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. Yoon Kyung-ho 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
12 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
MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission
as Optician's Manager
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Humint
as Minister Yoon
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Kingmaker
as Director Kim
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Sleep
as Doctor
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Okja
as Mirando Employee
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Alienoid: Return to the Future
as Sam-sik
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
MAL·MO·E: The Secret Mission
as Optician's Manager
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Revolver
as Lawyer Yang
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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