Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#69176
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Ge You represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 years in, and Ge is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ge You appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ge. Let the Bullets Fly 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 quiet performance, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Yu Baimei, Guan Hu, Jiang Wen and others, Ge You 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.
Let the Bullets Fly (2010) as Old Tang · To Live (1994) as Xu Fugui · Farewell My Concubine (1993) as Master Yuan Shiqing
Career snapshot
Ranked #69176 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1993–2020
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Let the Bullets Fly
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
To Live
Most frequent director
Yu Baimei
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Yu Baimei
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
2h 23m
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
6.8
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
7.5 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. To Live, Farewell My Concubine — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.5
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
8.0
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. To Live, Farewell My Concubine.
Most productive era
1990s
2 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 | 7.52 films | 7.31 film | 6.61 film | 6.11 film |
| Action | — | 7.31 film | 7.81 film | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 7.81 film | 6.11 film |
| Romance | 7.51 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Master Yuan Shiqing.
Career peak
1994To Live
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Zhang Beijing.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Xu Fugui
Directed by Zhang Yimou
as Zhang Beijing (segment "Hello Beijing")
Directed by Guan Hu
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
Old Tang
Let the Bullets Fly (2010)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Old Tang gives Ge You a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Xu Fugui
To Live (1994)
Performance score8.1
To Live asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Xu Fugui is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Master Yuan Shiqing
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
Performance score7.6
Farewell My Concubine asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Master Yuan Shiqing is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Uncle Bill
A World Without Thieves (2004)
Performance score7.4
A World Without Thieves asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Uncle Bill 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 Old Tang
Start here. Let the Bullets Fly is the clearest statement of what Ge You does — accessible, 132 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ge 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.
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
A deliberate change of key after Let the Bullets Fly — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
To Live (1994)
Keeps the drama register of Farewell My Concubine but asks for a colder reading of it.
A World Without Thieves (2004)
Keeps the drama register of To Live but asks for a colder reading of it.
My People, My Country (2019)
Keeps the drama register of A World Without Thieves but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Chen Kaige
Director
1 film together
Notably Farewell My Concubine
Zhang Yimou
Director
1 film together
Notably To Live
Feng Xiaogang
Director
1 film together
Notably A World Without Thieves
Jiang Wen
Director
1 film together
Notably Let the Bullets Fly
Guan Hu
Director
1 film together
Notably My People, My Country
Yu Baimei
Director
1 film together
Notably My People, My Homeland
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jiang Wen
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Let the Bullets FlyZhang Yimou
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
To LiveChen Kaige
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Farewell My ConcubineFeng Xiaogang
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A World Without ThievesGuan Hu
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My People, My CountryYu Baimei
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My People, My HomelandSix 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
Let the Bullets Fly
as Old Tang
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
To Live
as Xu Fugui
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Let the Bullets Fly
as Old Tang
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Farewell My Concubine
as Master Yuan Shiqing
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Let the Bullets Fly
as Old Tang
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. Ge You 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
5 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
Let the Bullets Fly
as Old Tang
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Let the Bullets Fly
as Old Tang
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
To Live
as Xu Fugui
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Let the Bullets Fly
as Old Tang
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Let the Bullets Fly
as Old Tang
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Let the Bullets Fly
as Old Tang
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
To Live
as Xu Fugui
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
My People, My Country
as Zhang Beijing (segment "Hello Beijing")
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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