Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8716
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kim Eui-sung 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.
Kim Eui-sung appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kim. Da Capo is the clearest case: a film rated 9.0 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, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ryoo Seung-wan, Lee Joon-ik, Lee Byeong-heon and others, Kim Eui-sung 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.
Da Capo (2020) as Director Ahn · The Book of Fish (2021) as Mr. Jang · Train to Busan (2016) as Yong-suk
Career snapshot
Ranked #8716 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2016–2026
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.0
Da Capo
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.0
Da Capo
Most frequent director
Ryoo Seung-wan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ryoo Seung-wan
Most common genre
Action
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.2
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
6.7
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
7.2 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Humint, Alienoid: Return to the Future, 12.12: The Day — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.2
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.1
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. Trade Your Love, Extreme Job, Rampant.
Most productive era
2020s
9 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 | 6.81 film | 7.55 films |
| Action | 7.33 films | 7.25 films |
| Thriller | 7.81 film | 7.52 films |
| Comedy | 6.52 films | — |
| Crime | 7.21 film | 7.32 films |
| Romance | 5.81 film | — |
| Horror | 7.32 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2016Train to Busan
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Yong-suk.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020Da Capo
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.0 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
2026Humint
The current state of the argument, as Director of the NIS.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Oh Gook-sang
Directed by Unknown
as Mr. Jang
Directed by Lee Joon-ik
as Yong-suk
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho
as CEO Baek
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.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Director Ahn
Da Capo (2020)
Performance score8.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Director Ahn gives Kim Eui-sung a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Oh Gook-sang
12.12: The Day (2023)
Performance score7.7
12.12: The Day asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Oh Gook-sang is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mr. Jang
The Book of Fish (2021)
Performance score7.6
The Book of Fish asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Jang is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Yong-suk
Train to Busan (2016)
Performance score7.6
Train to Busan asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Yong-suk 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 Director Ahn
Start here. Da Capo is the clearest statement of what Kim Eui-sung does — accessible, 98 minutes, and rated 9.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kim 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.
Train to Busan (2016)
A deliberate change of key after Da Capo — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Book of Fish (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Train to Busan — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Special Delivery (2022)
A deliberate change of key after The Book of Fish — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
12.12: The Day (2023)
Same director as Special Delivery, 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.
Yeon Sang-ho
Director
1 film together
Notably Train to Busan
Kim Sung-hoon
Director
1 film together
Notably Rampant
Lee Byeong-heon
Director
1 film together
Notably Extreme Job
Lee Joon-ik
Director
1 film together
Notably The Book of Fish
Ryoo Seung-wan
Director
1 film together
Notably Humint
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Lee 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 FishYeon Sang-ho
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Train to BusanRyoo Seung-wan
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HumintLee Byeong-heon
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Extreme JobKim Sung-hoon
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RampantSix 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
Da Capo
as Director Ahn
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Da Capo
as Director Ahn
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Da Capo
as Director Ahn
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Da Capo
as Director Ahn
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Da Capo
as Director Ahn
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. Kim Eui-sung 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
8 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
Da Capo
as Director Ahn
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Train to Busan
as Yong-suk
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Da Capo
as Director Ahn
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
12.12: The Day
as Oh Gook-sang
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Da Capo
as Director Ahn
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Alienoid: Return to the Future
as Jajang / Doctor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Da Capo
as Director Ahn
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Train to Busan
as Yong-suk
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
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Reference
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