Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#22816
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Yu Ailei 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.
Yu Ailei appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Yu. One Second is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 comedy, drama, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Vicky Zhao Wei, Lu Chuan, Larry Yang and others, Yu Ailei 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.
One Second (2020) as Officer Cui · Ride On (2023) as Shrimp · The Eight Hundred (2020) as Luoyang Chan
Career snapshot
Ranked #22816 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2007–2026
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
One Second
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
One Second
Most frequent director
Zhang Yimou
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Zhang Yimou
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
2h 10m
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
6.4
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
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Warlords — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.8
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. The Warlords.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 6.58 films |
| Action | 6.81 film | 6.84 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.11 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.63 films |
| Crime | — | 5.11 film |
| Romance | — | 5.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2007The Warlords
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Wang Xiao-Shou.
Highest rated performance
2020One Second
7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2023Ride On
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 Officer Luo.
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
as Shrimp
Directed by Larry Yang
as Luoyang Chan
Directed by Guan Hu
as Wang Xiao-Shou
Directed by Peter Chan Ho-Sun
as Jin Zhide
Directed by Zhang Yimou
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
Shrimp
Ride On (2023)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Shrimp gives Yu Ailei a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Officer Cui
One Second (2020)
Performance score7.2
One Second asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Officer Cui is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Luoyang Chan
The Eight Hundred (2020)
Performance score7.0
The Eight Hundred asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Luoyang Chan is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Wang Xiao-Shou
The Warlords (2007)
Performance score6.7
The Warlords asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Wang Xiao-Shou 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 Shrimp
Start here. Ride On is the clearest statement of what Yu Ailei does — accessible, 126 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Yu 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.
The Warlords (2007)
Keeps the action register of Ride On but asks for a colder reading of it.
One Second (2020)
Keeps the drama register of The Warlords but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Eight Hundred (2020)
Keeps the drama register of One Second but asks for a colder reading of it.
Cliff Walkers (2021)
Keeps the action register of The Eight Hundred but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Zhang Yimou
Director
3 films together
Notably One Second
Peter Chan Ho-Sun
Director
1 film together
Notably The Warlords
Guan Hu
Director
1 film together
Notably The Eight Hundred
Shen Teng
Director
1 film together
Notably My Country, My Parents
Andrew Lau Wai-Keung
Director
1 film together
Notably Chinese Doctors
Larry Yang
Director
1 film together
Notably Ride On
Lu Chuan
Director
1 film together
Notably Bureau 749
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.
Zhang Yimou
Director
3 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
One SecondLarry Yang
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ride OnGuan Hu
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Eight HundredPeter Chan Ho-Sun
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The WarlordsLu Chuan
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bureau 749Shen Teng
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Country, My ParentsAndrew Lau Wai-Keung
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chinese DoctorsVicky 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
Ride On
as Shrimp
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 Officer Luo
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
One Second
as Officer Cui
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
My Country, My Parents
as Song Futing (segment "Riding the Wind")
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Ride On
as Shrimp
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. Yu Ailei 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
9 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
One Second
as Officer Cui
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Cliff Walkers
as Jin Zhide
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
No Other Love
as Officer Luo
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Full River Red
as Liu Xi
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ride On
as Shrimp
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Bureau 749
as Mr. Scar
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Warlords
as Wang Xiao-Shou
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Full River Red
as Liu Xi
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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