Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#14589
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Yuen Biao represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 54 years in, and Yuen is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Yuen Biao appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Yuen. The Sixth Robber is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Guo Hu, Tsui Hark, Jackie Chan and others, Yuen Biao 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 Sixth Robber (2025) as Lao Zhao · Project A (1983) as Inspector Hong Tin Chi · Enter the Dragon (1973) as Tournament Fighter (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #14589 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1972–2026
Career length
54 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
The Sixth Robber
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
The Sixth Robber
Most frequent director
Jackie Chan
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jackie Chan
Most common genre
Action
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 51m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
7.0
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
1990s
7.1 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Once Upon a Time in China — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
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, Fist of Fury.
Most productive era
1970s
3 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | 7.11 film | 7.11 film | 7.01 film | 6.51 film |
| Action | 7.03 films | 7.03 films | 7.11 film | 7.01 film | 6.83 films |
| Thriller | 6.82 films | — | — | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 7.03 films | — | 6.72 films | — |
| Crime | — | 7.11 film | — | — | 7.32 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1972Fist of Fury
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Susuki's Student Who Spar with Petrov (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2025The Sixth Robber
8.2 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
2026Cold War 1994
The current state of the argument, as S.T. Lee.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Lao Zhao
Directed by Unknown
as Inspector Hong Tin Chi
Directed by Jackie Chan
as Tournament Fighter (uncredited)
Directed by Robert Clouse
as Steve Mok
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
Lao Zhao
The Sixth Robber (2025)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lao Zhao gives Yuen Biao a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Inspector Hong Tin Chi
Project A (1983)
Performance score7.6
Project A asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Inspector Hong Tin Chi is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Leung Foon
Once Upon a Time in China (1991)
Performance score7.5
Once Upon a Time in China asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Leung Foon is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Tournament Fighter (uncredited)
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Performance score7.2
Enter the Dragon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tournament Fighter (uncredited) 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 Lao Zhao
Start here. The Sixth Robber is the clearest statement of what Yuen Biao does — accessible, 106 minutes, and rated 8.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Yuen 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.
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Keeps the action register of The Sixth Robber but asks for a colder reading of it.
Project A (1983)
Keeps the action register of Enter the Dragon but asks for a colder reading of it.
Once Upon a Time in China (1991)
Keeps the action register of Project A but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rob-B-Hood (2006)
Keeps the action register of Once Upon a Time in China but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Robert Clouse
Director
2 films together
Notably Enter the Dragon
Jackie Chan
Director
2 films together
Notably Project A
Lo Wei
Director
1 film together
Notably Fist of Fury
Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
Director
1 film together
Notably Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars
Tsui Hark
Director
1 film together
Notably Once Upon a Time in China
Guo Hu
Director
1 film together
Notably Heroes Return
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jackie Chan
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
Project ARobert 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 DragonTsui Hark
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Once Upon a Time in ChinaLo Wei
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fist of FurySammo 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 StarsGuo Hu
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Heroes ReturnSix 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 Sixth Robber
as Lao Zhao
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Fist of Fury
as Susuki's Student Who Spar with Petrov (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Sixth Robber
as Lao Zhao
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Miracles: The Canton Godfather
as Begs for Change from Chen Wah
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Sixth Robber
as Lao Zhao
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. Yuen Biao 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
54 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
The Sixth Robber
as Lao Zhao
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Sixth Robber
as Lao Zhao
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Fist of Fury
as Susuki's Student Who Spar with Petrov (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Sixth Robber
as Lao Zhao
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Sixth Robber
as Lao Zhao
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Project A
as Inspector Hong Tin Chi
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Miracles: The Canton Godfather
as Begs for Change from Chen Wah
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Game of Death
as Billy Lo
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Edward Norton
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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