3 ½ stars
It seems impossible, but I’ve been watching Donnie Yen movies for over 30 years, starting with Iron Monkey in 1993. Along the way, I’ve seen Yen kick a lot of ass and perform some of the most exciting martial arts moves ever captured on celluloid. I’ve also watched him hone his skills as a comedic actor; his performances as the title characters in The Monkey King: Havoc in Heaven’s Place and Enter the Fat Dragon are classics in the art of physical comedy. In his four Ip Man films, where he plays the part of the celebrated Kung Fu master who instructed Bruce Lee, he combined his film fighting skills with a dramatic flair that genuinely honored the man he was playing.
Three decades plus and nothing prepared me for his performance in his latest film, Polar Rescue, co-directed by Lo Chi Leung (Double Tap) and Yen. It’s the story of a family outing to a snowy mountain resort that goes horribly wrong when the youngest child goes missing. With the clock ticking and the temperature dropping, a massive rescue effort involving the parents, local officials, and professional search and rescue teams is set into motion. Hopes of finding the child alive are low and drop with every passing hour.
The directors do an excellent job of building the tension and desperation felt by all in looking for the missing child, but there’s more to Polar Rescue than just the thrills of the search. As tensions rise, dark and troubling family secrets come out, secrets almost dark enough to overshadow the tragedy taking place before them. To twist the knife a little deeper, the family finds their dirty laundry – actual and only rumored – splashed across social media, turning a troubled situation downright ugly.
The strength of Polar Rescue is that the story stays focused on the parents despite the chaos surrounding them. There are plenty of rescue-related action sequences, including an avalanche, but watching how Mom and Dad react to each other keeps you riveted to the screen. Cecilia Han (Flashover) is excellent as the mom, especially in how she mirrors the audience’s reactions to the disappearance through the strange revelations that emerge as the story builds. It’s a delicate balance, and she never falters.
The real thrill in the movie, though, is watching Yen. The intense pressure, anxiety, and media scrutiny he faces as he becomes the story’s focus completely shatters the man, and the actor holds nothing back. There is nothing left of the hero we’ve been rooting for in action movies for the past 30+ years, and it’s shocking because Yen makes it so believable without throwing a single punch.
