Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4244
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Xing Yu 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.
Xing Yu appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Xing. The Shadow's Edge 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, transformation, action. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, horror, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Yuen Woo-ping, Larry Yang, Tsui Hark and others, Xing Yu 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 Shadow's Edge (2025) as Agus · Ip Man (2008) as Master Zealot Lin / Crazy Lin · Striking Rescue (2024) as Long Tai
Career snapshot
Ranked #4244 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
2004–2026
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
The Shadow's Edge
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
The Shadow's Edge
Most frequent director
Yuen Woo-ping
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Yuen Woo-ping
Most common genre
Action
19 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.6
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
7.2 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Bodyguards and Assassins, Ip Man, Flash Point — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.2
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.3
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. Bodyguards and Assassins, Ip Man, Flash Point.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.32 films | 6.72 films | 7.05 films |
| Action | 7.24 films | 6.83 films | 6.612 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.61 film | 6.84 films |
| Comedy | 7.51 film | 7.01 film | 7.21 film |
| Crime | 7.51 film | 6.51 film | 6.95 films |
| Horror | — | — | 5.92 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004Kung Fu Hustle
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Coolie.
Highest rated performance
2008Ip Man
7.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2024Striking Rescue
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 Tan Li.
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.
21 of 21 films
as Long Tai
Directed by Unknown
as Agus
Directed by Larry Yang
as Master Zealot Lin / Crazy Lin
Directed by Wilson Yip
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
Long Tai
Striking Rescue (2024)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Long Tai gives Xing Yu a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Tan Li
Fury In the Shadows (2026)
Performance score7.6
Fury In the Shadows asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tan Li is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Agus
The Shadow's Edge (2025)
Performance score7.5
The Shadow's Edge asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Agus is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Master Zealot Lin / Crazy Lin
Ip Man (2008)
Performance score7.5
Ip Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Master Zealot Lin / Crazy Lin 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 Long Tai
Start here. Striking Rescue is the clearest statement of what Xing Yu does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Xing 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.
Ip Man (2008)
Keeps the action register of Striking Rescue but asks for a colder reading of it.
Cruel War (2024)
Keeps the action register of Ip Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Shadow's Edge (2025)
Keeps the action register of Cruel War but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fury In the Shadows (2026)
Keeps the action register of The Shadow's Edge but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Wilson Yip
Director
2 films together
Notably Ip Man
Stephen Chow
Director
2 films together
Notably Kung Fu Hustle
Tsui Hark
Director
2 films together
Notably Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants
Larry Yang
Director
2 films together
Notably The Shadow's Edge
Yuen Woo-ping
Director
2 films together
Notably Blades of the Guardians
Wong Jing
Director
1 film together
Notably New Kung Fu Cult Master
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Larry Yang
Director
2 films together · 7.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Shadow's EdgeStephen Chow
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Kung Fu HustleWilson Yip
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Ip ManYuen Woo-ping
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Blades of the GuardiansTsui Hark
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
Legends of the Condor Heroes: The GallantsWong Jing
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
New Kung Fu Cult MasterSix 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 Shadow's Edge
as Agus
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Ip Man
as Master Zealot Lin / Crazy Lin
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ip Man
as Master Zealot Lin / Crazy Lin
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Shadow's Edge
as Agus
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Striking Rescue
as Long Tai
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. Xing Yu 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
22 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
19 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
Ip Man
as Master Zealot Lin / Crazy Lin
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Shadow's Edge
as Agus
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Ip Man
as Master Zealot Lin / Crazy Lin
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Fury In the Shadows
as Tan Li
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Shadow's Edge
as Agus
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Blades of the Guardians
as Du Yan Long / One Eye
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Striking Rescue
as Long Tai
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons
as Fist of the North Star
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
Community
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Reference
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