FigureAsia 35 Under 35 · Entertainment
Jackson Yee
Age 25 · Transformative lead acting · Mainland China
Five-part film performance moving one dreamer through a century of cinematic forms
- Age at 31 December 2025
- 25
- Field
- Film performance
- Country or region
- Mainland China
- FigureAsia U35 Assessment
- 85.2 / 100
Profile
Career and documented record
Jackson Yee, also known professionally as Yi Yangqianxi, is a Chinese actor whose screen work has progressively separated itself from the fame of his early music career. Better Days, A Little Red Flower, Nice View, Full River Red and Big World gave him increasingly demanding film assignments built around social pressure, physical transformation and sustained dramatic responsibility. Music activity supplies no points in this edition.
His principal qualifying work is Bi Gan's completed 2025 feature Resurrection. Yee plays the Deliriant or Fantasmer through five guises linked to changing senses, periods of twentieth-century Chinese history and forms of cinema. The assignment moves from prosthetic silent-film grotesque to crime, memory and a final extended nocturnal movement. Continuity cannot depend on one naturalistic character biography; the performance has to let the body become the connective material between genres.
Resurrection premiered in Competition at Cannes and received the jury's Special Prize before entering theatrical circulation. Those distinctions belong to Bi Gan and the production as a whole. Yee's attributable achievement is the physical and tonal recalibration required by its five-part structure, including the ability to remain recognisably related while each incarnation adopts a different cinematic grammar.
In November 2025, Yee also received the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor for his completed performance as Liu Chunhe in Big World. That award relates to an earlier release but was conferred inside the period and provides peer recognition for an acting trajectory already tested in materially different roles. The selection rests on acting, not on the title, music career or scale of his public following.
FigureAsia selection
Why Jackson Yee is on the list
FigureAsia selected Yee for a completed 2025 performance that asks one body to hold together a 160-minute meditation on cinema across five distinct registers. The scale of prosthetic, physical and tonal change is unusually legible, and independent criticism identified the performance rather than merely noting his presence in a prestigious film.
The Golden Rooster result reinforces demonstrated trajectory but does not replace judgment of Resurrection. Together, the records show a performer accepting high-risk film work and being tested in both mainland professional assessment and international festival circulation.
His score is moderated because Bi Gan's formal design, cinematography, editing, makeup and ensemble create the conditions of the transformation. Even after those contributions are restored, Yee carries enough of the film's changing human centre to justify inclusion.
Verified work
The 2025–26 record
Five-part Resurrection lead
Played the Deliriant across five guises and cinematic forms in Bi Gan's completed 160-minute feature.
Physical and tonal transformation
Used prosthetics, posture, movement and shifts of register to connect silent-film grotesque, historical dream and nocturnal romance.
Cannes Competition circulation
Carried the central performance in a completed film selected for Cannes Competition and awarded the jury's Special Prize.
Golden Rooster recognition
Received the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor for Big World, providing peer recognition for a separately completed lead performance.
Field context
The work in its field
A multi-part art-film performance is difficult to compare with a conventional dramatic lead because continuity is conceptual as well as psychological. FigureAsia therefore examined the exact transformations Yee performs, the amount of the film he carries and the independent critical attention to that labour. Cannes recognition demonstrates that the finished film entered a serious international arena; it does not convert the actor into its author.
Yee’s assessment separates two completed achievements: the Golden Rooster-recognised work in Big World and the five-incarnation structure of Resurrection. The latter asks for conceptual continuity across radically different embodiments, a problem unlike conventional character development; Cannes exposure confirms scrutiny of the finished film but does not confer authorship on its lead.
FigureAsia U35 Assessment
Assessment breakdown
85.2out of 100
Substantive 2025–2026 contribution
17.5 / 20
Resurrection requires five connected performances across a completed 160-minute 2025 feature.
Verified impact
13 / 15
Cannes Competition, the Special Prize and a Golden Rooster acting award establish verified consequence without collapsing film and actor credit.
Originality and distinction
8.5 / 10
The use of distinct bodies and registers inside one conceptual character is unusually demanding and identifiable.
Industry influence
8.5 / 10
The work strengthened a transition from popular fame to high-responsibility mainland and international cinema.
Individual agency
8.5 / 10
The performance is attributable, but its transformations depend substantially on direction, design, makeup and cinematography.
Durability and demonstrated trajectory
4 / 5
The 2025 film and acting award extend a demonstrated sequence of demanding screen roles.
Asian significance and global relevance
5 / 5
A Chinese performer carried a century-spanning work about Chinese history and cinema into global festival and theatrical circulation.
Craft or creative execution
7 / 8
Prosthetic acting, posture and tonal recalibration connect five roles without relying on a conventional single biography.
Performance, narrative or production responsibility
5 / 6
Yee occupies the film's changing human centre, while the auteur structure limits claims of sole narrative authorship.
Audience and critical consequence
4.2 / 5
International criticism and formal awards show serious encounter, though the film's audience was narrower than mass-market releases.
Cross-market and format achievement
2 / 3
The work crosses multiple cinematic styles and domestic/international film systems more than separate media formats.
Professional practice and representation
2 / 3
The case demonstrates Chinese acting range; identity and prior celebrity add no automatic credit.