Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#45288
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ye Xinyu 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.
Ye Xinyu appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ye. The Master of Supine Armor is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 drama, crime, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with An Jiaxing, Luo Yiwei, Si Xiaodong, Ye Xinyu 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 Master of Supine Armor (2021) as Chang Tiang · The Truth is Murky (2025) as Cheng Fulai · Restart the Earth (2021) as Lao Lei
Career snapshot
Ranked #45288 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2019–2026
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
The Master of Supine Armor
Average Nutevio score
3.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Master of Supine Armor
Most frequent director
An Jiaxing
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With An Jiaxing
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 7m
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
6.1
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
3.6 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. 加油吧！娜依拉, 歪打正好, Invincible Swordsman — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
3.6
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
3.6
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. Royal Guards: The Death Town.
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 | — | 4.36 films |
| Action | — | 5.83 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.01 film |
| Crime | — | 0.01 film |
| Horror | — | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2019Royal Guards: The Death Town
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ma Wen.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021The Master of Supine Armor
8.0 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
2026加油吧！娜依拉
The current state of the argument.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Chang Tiang
Directed by Si Xiaodong
as Cheng Fulai
Directed by Unknown
as Lao Lei
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
Chang Tiang
The Master of Supine Armor (2021)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Chang Tiang gives Ye Xinyu a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Cheng Fulai
The Truth is Murky (2025)
Performance score7.1
The Truth is Murky asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cheng Fulai is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
左冷禅
Invincible Swordsman (2025)
Performance score6.6
Invincible Swordsman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. 左冷禅 is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Lao Lei
Restart the Earth (2021)
Performance score6.6
Restart the Earth asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lao Lei 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 Chang Tiang
Start here. The Master of Supine Armor is the clearest statement of what Ye Xinyu does — accessible, 92 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ye 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.
Restart the Earth (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Master of Supine Armor — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Truth is Murky (2025)
Same director as Restart the Earth, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Invincible Swordsman (2025)
Keeps the drama register of The Truth is Murky but asks for a colder reading of it.
加油吧！娜依拉 (2026)
Keeps the drama register of Invincible Swordsman but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Si Xiaodong
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Master of Supine ArmorLuo Yiwei
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Invincible SwordsmanAn Jiaxing
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
加油吧！娜依拉Six 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 Master of Supine Armor
as Chang Tiang
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 Master of Supine Armor
as Chang Tiang
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 Master of Supine Armor
as Chang Tiang
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Invincible Swordsman
as 左冷禅
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Master of Supine Armor
as Chang Tiang
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. Ye Xinyu 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
6 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
The Master of Supine Armor
as Chang Tiang
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Master of Supine Armor
as Chang Tiang
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Master of Supine Armor
as Chang Tiang
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Master of Supine Armor
as Chang Tiang
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Master of Supine Armor
as Chang Tiang
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Invincible Swordsman
as 左冷禅
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
歪打正好
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Invincible Swordsman
as 左冷禅
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
Which Ye Xinyu performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
