Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2868
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Daniel Wu represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 years in, and Daniel is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Daniel Wu appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Daniel. New Police Story is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. 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 Lisa Joy, Dean Devlin, Duncan Jones and others, Daniel Wu 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.
New Police Story (2004) as Joe Kwan · Rob-B-Hood (2006) as Daniel · Shinjuku Incident (2009) as Jie
Career snapshot
Ranked #2868 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1999–2026
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
New Police Story
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
New Police Story
Most frequent director
Lisa Joy
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Lisa Joy
Most common genre
Action
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
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
6.5
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
2000s
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Shinjuku Incident, Rob-B-Hood, Around the World in 80 Days — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
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. Gorgeous.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.03 films | — | 6.43 films |
| Action | 6.51 film | 6.74 films | 6.15 films | 6.23 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.02 films | 6.11 film | 6.32 films |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 6.52 films | — | 5.71 film |
| Crime | — | 7.02 films | — | 6.52 films |
| Romance | 6.51 film | — | — | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1999Gorgeous
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Photographer's Assistant.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2004New Police Story
7.2 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 Peter Choi (Young).
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.
15 of 15 films
as Joe Kwan
Directed by Unknown
as Peter Choi (Young)
Directed by Unknown
as Jie
Directed by Derek Yee Tung-Sing
as Falcon Zhang
Directed by Unknown
as Daniel
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
Joe Kwan
New Police Story (2004)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Joe Kwan gives Daniel Wu a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Peter Choi (Young)
Cold War 1994 (2026)
Performance score7.2
Cold War 1994 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Peter Choi (Young) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jie
Shinjuku Incident (2009)
Performance score7.1
Shinjuku Incident asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Falcon Zhang
Caught in Time (2020)
Performance score7.0
Caught in Time asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Falcon Zhang 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 Joe Kwan
Start here. New Police Story is the clearest statement of what Daniel Wu does — accessible, 123 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Daniel 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.
Rob-B-Hood (2006)
Same director as New Police Story, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Shinjuku Incident (2009)
Keeps the action register of Rob-B-Hood but asks for a colder reading of it.
Caught in Time (2020)
Keeps the action register of Shinjuku Incident but asks for a colder reading of it.
Cold War 1994 (2026)
Same director as Caught in Time, 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.
Vincent Kok Tak-Chiu
Director
1 film together
Notably Gorgeous
Frank Coraci
Director
1 film together
Notably Around the World in 80 Days
Derek Yee Tung-Sing
Director
1 film together
Notably Shinjuku Incident
Jackie Chan
Director
1 film together
Notably Chinese Zodiac
RZA
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man with the Iron Fists
Duncan Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably Warcraft
Dean Devlin
Director
1 film together
Notably Geostorm
Lisa Joy
Director
1 film together
Notably Reminiscence
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Derek Yee Tung-Sing
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shinjuku IncidentLisa Joy
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ReminiscenceVincent Kok Tak-Chiu
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GorgeousDuncan Jones
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WarcraftJackie Chan
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chinese ZodiacDean Devlin
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GeostormFrank 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 DaysRZA
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Man with the Iron FistsSix 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
New Police Story
as Joe Kwan
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Decoded
as 小黎黎（容小来）
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
New Police Story
as Joe Kwan
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Rob-B-Hood
as Daniel
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
New Police Story
as Joe Kwan
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. Daniel Wu 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
27 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
13 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
Reminiscence
as Saint Joe
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
New Police Story
as Joe Kwan
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Decoded
as 小黎黎（容小来）
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Reminiscence
as Saint Joe
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
New Police Story
as Joe Kwan
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Chinese Zodiac
as Hospital Doctor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Shinjuku Incident
as Jie
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Love Hurts
as Alvin 'Knuckles' Gable
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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