Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#34187
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Pak Ho-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.
Pak Ho-Sung appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Pak. The Legend of Drunken Master is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, intensity. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for mystery, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Antoine Fuqua, Dan Bradley, Uwe Boll and others, Pak Ho-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.
The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) as Henry · Secret in Their Eyes (2015) as Peanut Vendor · Olympus Has Fallen (2013) as Korean Commando (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #34187 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1994–2015
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
The Legend of Drunken Master
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
The Legend of Drunken Master
Most frequent director
Antoine Fuqua
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Antoine Fuqua
Most common genre
Action
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
1990s
7.5 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Legend of Drunken Master — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.5
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.5
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. The Legend of Drunken Master.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Action | 7.51 film | 4.21 film | 6.12 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.23 films |
| Comedy | 7.51 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | — | 6.41 film |
| Horror | — | 4.21 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1994The Legend of Drunken Master
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Henry. 7.5 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
The current state of the argument, as Peanut Vendor.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Peanut Vendor
Directed by Unknown
as Korean Commando (uncredited)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
as Chinese Soldier (uncredited)
Directed by Dan Bradley
as Kagan Vampire Guard #4
Directed by Uwe Boll
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
Henry
The Legend of Drunken Master (1994)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Henry gives Pak Ho-Sung a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Peanut Vendor
Secret in Their Eyes (2015)
Performance score6.5
Secret in Their Eyes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Peanut Vendor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Korean Commando (uncredited)
Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
Performance score6.5
Olympus Has Fallen asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Korean Commando (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Chinese Soldier (uncredited)
Red Dawn (2012)
Performance score6.5
Red Dawn asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chinese Soldier (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 Henry
Start here. The Legend of Drunken Master is the clearest statement of what Pak Ho-Sung does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Pak 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.
BloodRayne (2005)
Keeps the action register of The Legend of Drunken Master but asks for a colder reading of it.
Red Dawn (2012)
Keeps the action register of BloodRayne but asks for a colder reading of it.
Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
Keeps the action register of Red Dawn but asks for a colder reading of it.
Secret in Their Eyes (2015)
Keeps the thriller register of Olympus Has Fallen but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Lau Kar-leung
Director
1 film together
Notably The Legend of Drunken Master
Uwe Boll
Director
1 film together
Notably BloodRayne
Dan Bradley
Director
1 film together
Notably Red Dawn
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably Olympus Has Fallen
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Lau Kar-leung
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Legend of Drunken MasterAntoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Olympus Has FallenDan Bradley
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Red DawnUwe Boll
Director
1 film together · 4.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BloodRayneSix 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 Legend of Drunken Master
as Henry
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Legend of Drunken Master
as Henry
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 Legend of Drunken Master
as Henry
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Olympus Has Fallen
as Korean Commando (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Legend of Drunken Master
as Henry
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. Pak Ho-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.
Career Achievement
Awarded
21 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
4 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 Legend of Drunken Master
as Henry
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Legend of Drunken Master
as Henry
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Secret in Their Eyes
as Peanut Vendor
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Secret in Their Eyes
as Peanut Vendor
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Legend of Drunken Master
as Henry
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Olympus Has Fallen
as Korean Commando (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Legend of Drunken Master
as Henry
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
BloodRayne
as Kagan Vampire Guard #4
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: thriller and action
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: fantasy and thriller
Ted Levine
Built a career in the same territory: crime and thriller
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and fantasy
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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