Jackson Yee holds our attention with small movements and watchful silence. We rate that restraint, but his work also shows how little a committed actor can do when the writing gives him nobody distinct to play.
Fi1m perspective
In The Battle at Lake Changjin (2021), Jackson Yee’s Wu Wanli fights, but gets few chances to register an awkward, individual response to what is happening around him. Yee puts effort into the part, and the writing gives him little help. We felt little for him, because the film kept insisting on courage without making the soldier distinct. We would not use this poor war film as a fair measure of his acting. Its soldiers are too thinly written for that.
His quieter acting gives us more to consider. His breakthrough as a film lead came with Better Days (2019), after early television roles and smaller film parts. As a street-tough protector with little dialogue, he keeps our attention through his eyes and restrained movement. We like the patience of that acting: it lets us look at a face without having every feeling explained. A Little Red Flower (2020) followed as another leading dramatic role.
The problem in The Battle at Lake Changjin is shared across the cast. Huang Jianxin and Lan Xiaolong’s screenplay leaves Yee, Wu Jing and Duan Yihong with men defined largely by their participation in the fighting. Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam Chiu-yin stage forceful battles, yet give the performances too little room within them. More lines would not necessarily help. We need Wu Wanli to respond in a way that another soldier would not, and the film repeatedly passes up that chance.
The later choices are encouraging. Zhang Yimou’s historical comedy-drama Full River Red (2023) was followed by the physically demanding Big World (2024) and multiple roles in Bi Gan’s experimental Resurrection (2025). Those parts set him different acting problems, though we would be wary of treating the physical preparation as sufficient reason to admire a performance. The work should let us understand someone, rather than leave us counting the difficulties involved in playing them. We would begin with Better Days and leave The Battle at Lake Changjin to the determined completist.
Biography
Jackson Yee, also credited as Yi Yangqianxi or Jackson Yi, is a Chinese actor and singer. He was born on 28 November 2000 in Huaihua, Hunan, China, and graduated from the Central Academy of Drama.
Yee made his feature film debut in Better Days (2019) as Xiao Bei. He subsequently appeared as Wei Yihang in A Little Red Flower (2020) and as Wu Wanli in The Battle at Lake Changjin (2021) and its 2022 sequel. Other credits include Nice View (2022), Full River Red (2023), Big World (2024) and Resurrection (2025). He won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor for Big World.
