[1] Yu Nan started acting at the age of 4, playing role of a little girl with a handkerchief tied to her dress.

Later, instead of following her family's advice to study foreign languages and get a university degree, Yu enrolled at the Beijing Film Academy in 1995.

Her feisty performance as a shy, retiring wife by day and a wild party animal by night won her Best Actress at the Deauville Asian Film Festival.

[8][9] Yu Nan has also worked with other major Chinese directors, including Wang Xiaoshuai in In Love We Trust (2008), which won the Best Screenplay Silver Bear prize at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival,[10] Lee Yun-chan's in My DNA Says I Love You and Ning Hao, in his Chinese Western film, No Man's Land (2013).

Yu's most notable work in recent years include Silent Witness (2013) and Wolf Warriors (2015).