Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#14510
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Tai Bo represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 53 years in, and Tai is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Tai Bo appears in 22 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tai. Papa is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Yao Hung-i, Chan Kin-Long, Chiang Jui-chih and others, Tai Bo 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.
Papa (2024) as Ho Kim · The Silent Forest (2020) as Bei Bei's Grandfather · The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) as Man in Crowd Outside Cafe
Career snapshot
Ranked #14510 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
22
1973–2026
Career length
53 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Papa
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Papa
Most frequent director
Jackie Chan
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Jackie Chan
Most common genre
Action
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
6.8
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. 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
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Enter the Dragon.
Most productive era
2020s
13 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 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.11 film | — | 2.32 films | 6.58 films |
| Action | 7.31 film | 7.15 films | 7.51 film | — | 6.45 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.11 film | — | — | 6.33 films |
| Comedy | — | 7.04 films | 7.51 film | — | 6.31 film |
| Crime | — | 7.23 films | — | — | 6.38 films |
| Horror | — | — | — | — | 5.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1973Enter the Dragon
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ohara's Crew Who Attacks Su Lin (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2024Papa
8.1 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
2026Cold War 1994
The current state of the argument, as C.K. Chan (Elder of Lo Yuen).
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.
22 of 22 films
as Bei Bei's Grandfather
Directed by Unknown
as Tai Bo
Directed by Jackie Chan
as Man in Crowd Outside Cafe
Directed by Lau Kar-leung
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Ho Kim
Papa (2024)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ho Kim gives Tai Bo a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bei Bei's Grandfather
The Silent Forest (2020)
Performance score7.7
The Silent Forest asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bei Bei's Grandfather is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Pak
Twilight's Kiss (2020)
Performance score7.4
Twilight's Kiss asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pak is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Tai Bo
Project A (1983)
Performance score7.4
Project A asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tai Bo 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 Ho Kim
Start here. Papa is the clearest statement of what Tai Bo does — accessible, 130 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tai 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.
Project A (1983)
A deliberate change of key after Papa — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Legend of Drunken Master (1994)
Keeps the action register of Project A but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Silent Forest (2020)
A deliberate change of key after The Legend of Drunken Master — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Twilight's Kiss (2020)
Same director as The Silent Forest, 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.
Jackie Chan
Director
4 films together
Notably Police Story
Yao Hung-i
Director
2 films together
Notably GATAO: Like Father Like Son
Robert Clouse
Director
1 film together
Notably Enter the Dragon
Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
Director
1 film together
Notably Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars
Lau Kar-leung
Director
1 film together
Notably The Legend of Drunken Master
Chan Chun-hao
Director
1 film together
Notably Viatical Settlement
Chiang Jui-chih
Director
1 film together
Notably Gatao: The Last Stray
Chan Kin-Long
Director
1 film together
Notably Hand Rolled Cigarette
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jackie Chan
Director
4 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Police StoryYao 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 SonLau 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 MasterRobert Clouse
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Enter the DragonSammo Hung Kam-Bo
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky StarsChan Kin-Long
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hand Rolled CigaretteChiang 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 StrayChan Chun-hao
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Viatical SettlementSix 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
Papa
as Ho Kim
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 Silent Forest
as Bei Bei's Grandfather
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Papa
as Ho Kim
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Papa
as Ho Kim
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. Tai Bo 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
53 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
12 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
Papa
as Ho Kim
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Papa
as Ho Kim
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Silent Forest
as Bei Bei's Grandfather
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Detective Chinatown 1900
as Uncle Si
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Project A
as Tai Bo
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Project A
as Tai Bo
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Miracles: The Canton Godfather
as Chen Wah's Man
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
GATAO: Big Brothers
as Hada
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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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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