Mike Moh
Mike Moh is an actor, born 1983.
Martial arts came first. Moh is a senior black belt in American Taekwondo and a Korean American performer who reached the screen through the discipline rather than around it, which is a route that has always produced a very particular kind of career: enormous physical credibility, and a long wait for parts that need anything else.
His breakthrough was the web-native Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist in 2014, where he played Ryu, and its follow-up Resurrection in 2016. That work is a fair statement of what he can do, since the material demands the fighting be real and the melodrama be delivered straight. He also turned up in a handful of episodes of Empire, and played Triton in Marvel's Inhumans in 2017.
Then came Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood in 2019 and the assignment nobody would want: playing Bruce Lee, on film, in front of an audience that has memorised the original. It is the credit that put him in front of the widest audience he has had, and it remains the one people argue about. Since then he has worked steadily in supporting roles, as Melvin in Boogie, Reo in Blade of the 47 Ronin, Baracuta in Killerman and Wagner in Ghosted, without yet being handed the leading part the fight work keeps promising.
Movies (6)
TV (2)
Where to start with Mike Moh
Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist is the honest starting point, because it is the only thing here built entirely around what he can actually do. The fights are staged to be watched rather than cut around, and Ryu gives him the full range of the job.
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is the famous credit and should be watched second, once you know his own work well enough to judge the impersonation on its own terms rather than against the legend.
After that, Boogie is the most interesting dramatic use of him, Blade of the 47 Ronin is the straightest action outing, and Marvel's Inhumans is a curiosity best approached with expectations lowered in advance. Ghosted and Killerman are minor.