Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#26073
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Yu Nan 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 Nan appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Yu. The Taking of Tiger Mountain is the clearest case: a film rated 6.6 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 crime, action, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Wu Jing, Tsui Hark, Simon West and others, Yu Nan 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 Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014) as Ma Qinglian · The Expendables 2 (2012) as Maggie Chan · Speed Racer (2008) as Horuko
Career snapshot
Ranked #26073 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2008–2026
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.6
The Taking of Tiger Mountain
Average Nutevio score
5.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.6
The Taking of Tiger Mountain
Most frequent director
Wu Jing
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Wu Jing
Most common genre
Action
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 34m
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
2010s
6.4 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Wolf Warrior, The Taking of Tiger Mountain, The Expendables 2 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.4
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.4
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. Speed Racer.
Most productive era
2010s
3 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 | — | — | 5.51 film |
| Action | 6.41 film | 6.32 films | 5.51 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.52 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | — | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2008Speed Racer
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Horuko.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2014The Taking of Tiger Mountain
6.6 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全城追缉
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.
6 of 6 films
as Ma Qinglian
Directed by Tsui Hark
as Long Xiaoyun
Directed by Wu Jing
as Maggie Chan
Directed by Simon West
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
Ma Qinglian
The Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ma Qinglian gives Yu Nan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Long Xiaoyun
Wolf Warrior (2015)
Performance score6.7
Wolf Warrior asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Long Xiaoyun is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
全城追缉
全城追缉 (2026)
Performance score6.5
全城追缉 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
筱月桂
Lord of Shanghai 2 (2020)
Performance score6.5
Lord of Shanghai 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. 筱月桂 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 Ma Qinglian
Start here. The Taking of Tiger Mountain is the clearest statement of what Yu Nan does — accessible, 141 minutes, and rated 6.6 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 Expendables 2 (2012)
Keeps the adventure register of The Taking of Tiger Mountain but asks for a colder reading of it.
Wolf Warrior (2015)
Keeps the action register of The Expendables 2 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Lord of Shanghai 2 (2020)
Keeps the action register of Wolf Warrior but asks for a colder reading of it.
全城追缉 (2026)
Same director as Lord of Shanghai 2, 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.
Lilly Wachowski
Director
1 film together
Notably Speed Racer
Simon West
Director
1 film together
Notably The Expendables 2
Tsui Hark
Director
1 film together
Notably The Taking of Tiger Mountain
Wu Jing
Director
1 film together
Notably Wolf Warrior
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tsui Hark
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Taking of Tiger MountainSimon West
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Expendables 2Lilly Wachowski
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Speed RacerWu Jing
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wolf WarriorSix 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 Taking of Tiger Mountain
as Ma Qinglian
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Speed Racer
as Horuko
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 Taking of Tiger Mountain
as Ma Qinglian
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Speed Racer
as Horuko
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Taking of Tiger Mountain
as Ma Qinglian
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 Nan 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
4 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
The Taking of Tiger Mountain
as Ma Qinglian
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Expendables 2
as Maggie Chan
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Lord of Shanghai 2
as 筱月桂
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Taking of Tiger Mountain
as Ma Qinglian
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Expendables 2
as Maggie Chan
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Expendables 2
as Maggie Chan
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Wolf Warrior
as Long Xiaoyun
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Expendables 2
as Maggie Chan
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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David Krumholtz
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Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
Which Yu Nan performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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