Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#66796
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Qi Xi 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.
Qi Xi appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Qi. An Unfinished Film is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for family, drama, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Vicky Zhao Wei, Shen Ao, Xue Xiaolu and others, Qi Xi 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.
An Unfinished Film (2024) as Sang Qi · So Long, My Son (2019) as Shen Moli · Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018) as Woman in Jade Hotel
Career snapshot
Ranked #66796 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2018–2026
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
An Unfinished Film
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
An Unfinished Film
Most frequent director
Vicky Zhao Wei
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Vicky Zhao Wei
Most common genre
Drama
10 titles
Average runtime
2h 2m
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
6.2
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
6.2 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. It's My Time, Being Towards Death, A Table For Two — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.2
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.2
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. The Whistleblower, First Night Nerves, So Long, My Son.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | 6.13 films | 6.27 films |
| Action | 6.71 film | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.22 films |
| Crime | 6.71 film | 5.11 film |
| Romance | — | 5.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2018Long Day's Journey Into Night
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Woman in Jade Hotel.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019So Long, My Son
7.7 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
2026No Other Love
The current state of the argument, as Lan Ruoxin.
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.
11 of 11 films
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
Sang Qi
An Unfinished Film (2024)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Sang Qi gives Qi Xi a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Shen Moli
So Long, My Son (2019)
Performance score8.0
So Long, My Son asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Shen Moli is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Pan Wenjia
Escape from the Outland (2025)
Performance score7.2
Escape from the Outland asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pan Wenjia is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Judy
The Whistleblower (2019)
Performance score7.1
The Whistleblower asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Judy 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 Sang Qi
Start here. An Unfinished Film is the clearest statement of what Qi Xi does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Qi 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.
Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018)
Keeps the drama register of An Unfinished Film but asks for a colder reading of it.
So Long, My Son (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Long Day's Journey Into Night but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Whistleblower (2019)
A deliberate change of key after So Long, My Son — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Escape from the Outland (2025)
Keeps the action register of The Whistleblower but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bi Gan
Director
1 film together
Notably Long Day's Journey Into Night
Xue Xiaolu
Director
1 film together
Notably The Whistleblower
Shen Ao
Director
1 film together
Notably Escape from the Outland
Vicky Zhao Wei
Director
1 film together
Notably No Other Love
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Bi Gan
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Long Day's Journey Into NightShen Ao
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Escape from the OutlandXue Xiaolu
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The WhistleblowerVicky Zhao Wei
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
No Other LoveSix 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
An Unfinished Film
as Sang Qi
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
No Other Love
as Lan Ruoxin
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
So Long, My Son
as Shen Moli
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Long Day's Journey Into Night
as Woman in Jade Hotel
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
An Unfinished Film
as Sang Qi
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. Qi Xi 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
10 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
Long Day's Journey Into Night
as Woman in Jade Hotel
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Whistleblower
as Judy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
No Other Love
as Lan Ruoxin
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Long Day's Journey Into Night
as Woman in Jade Hotel
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
So Long, My Son
as Shen Moli
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Whistleblower
as Judy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Escape from the Outland
as Pan Wenjia
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Nice View
as Wang Chunmei
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: drama and action
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Mark Ruffalo
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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