Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#42264
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jack Kao represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Jack is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jack Kao appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jack. GATAO: Like Father Like Son is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, action, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Yao Hung-i, Chiang Jui-chih, Guo Shubo and others, Jack Kao 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.
GATAO: Like Father Like Son (2024) as Kui Tung · Project Gutenberg (2018) as General · Millennium Mambo (2001) as Jack
Career snapshot
Ranked #42264 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
2001–2026
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
GATAO: Like Father Like Son
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
GATAO: Like Father Like Son
Most frequent director
Yao Hung-i
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Yao Hung-i
Most common genre
Action
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
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
2000s
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Shinjuku Incident, Millennium Mambo — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Shinjuku Incident, Millennium Mambo.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | 6.12 films | 5.82 films |
| Action | 6.71 film | 6.44 films | 6.16 films |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | 6.11 film | — |
| Crime | 6.71 film | 6.43 films | 6.34 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
2001Millennium Mambo
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jack. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2024GATAO: Like Father Like Son
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026Amoeba
The current state of the argument, as Uncle Phoon.
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.
14 of 14 films
as Gao Jie
Directed by Derek Yee Tung-Sing
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
Jack
Millennium Mambo (2001)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jack gives Jack Kao a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Kui Tung
GATAO: Like Father Like Son (2024)
Performance score7.2
GATAO: Like Father Like Son asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kui Tung is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
General
Project Gutenberg (2018)
Performance score7.1
Project Gutenberg asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. General is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kuei
GATAO: Big Brothers (2025)
Performance score7.0
GATAO: Big Brothers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kuei 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 Jack
Start here. Millennium Mambo is the clearest statement of what Jack Kao does — accessible, 106 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jack 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.
Shinjuku Incident (2009)
Keeps the drama register of Millennium Mambo but asks for a colder reading of it.
Project Gutenberg (2018)
Keeps the action register of Shinjuku Incident but asks for a colder reading of it.
GATAO: Like Father Like Son (2024)
Keeps the action register of Project Gutenberg but asks for a colder reading of it.
GATAO: Big Brothers (2025)
Same director as GATAO: Like Father Like Son, 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.
Yao Hung-i
Director
2 films together
Notably GATAO: Like Father Like Son
Derek Yee Tung-Sing
Director
1 film together
Notably Shinjuku Incident
Yen Cheng-kuo
Director
1 film together
Notably Gatao 2: Rise of the King
Guo Shubo
Director
1 film together
Notably The Big Shot
Chiang Jui-chih
Director
1 film together
Notably Gatao: The Last Stray
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Yao Hung-i
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
GATAO: Like Father Like SonDerek 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 IncidentGuo Shubo
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Big ShotYen Cheng-kuo
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gatao 2: Rise of the KingChiang Jui-chih
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gatao: The Last StraySix 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
GATAO: Like Father Like Son
as Kui Tung
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Millennium Mambo
as Jack
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
GATAO: Like Father Like Son
as Kui Tung
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Assassin
as Yuan Yi
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Millennium Mambo
as Jack
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. Jack Kao 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
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
Project Gutenberg
as General
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
GATAO: Like Father Like Son
as Kui Tung
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Amoeba
as Uncle Phoon
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Project Gutenberg
as General
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
GATAO: Like Father Like Son
as Kui Tung
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Assassin
as Yuan Yi
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Shinjuku Incident
as Gao Jie
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
GATAO: Big Brothers
as Kuei
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Zach Grenier
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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