Polar Rescue (2022) Review

Polar Rescue | Blu-ray (Well Go USA)

AKA: Come Back Home
Director: Lo Chi-Leung
Cast: Donnie Yen, Cecilia Han, Jia Bing, Yuan Jinhui, Hou Tianlai, Xu Guangyu, Lin Chenhan
Running Time: 102 min.

By Paul Bramhall

Despite 2022 only being a couple of years ago, it feels like Donnie Yen’s first legitimate foray into headlining a production that relied purely on his acting chops has already been forgotten about. Having returned to the contemporary action thriller with a vengeance in the form of Raging Fire the year prior, it seemed like Yen was finally ready to hang his action boots up for good, stating in interviews how he now felt confident enough in his acting abilities to transition into less action focused fare. Considering he was almost 60, nobody could begrudge him such a decision. The result was Polar Rescue, and after an almost universal lambasting upon its release, Yen found himself backtracking faster than one of his chain punches, stating that he’d continue to deliver as an action lead as long as his body allowed him to do so.

Can a movie really be that bad though to make an action star who’s more than earned his right to take a rest completely 180 on his decision? I admit I’m a fan of certain slices of Yen’s oeuvre that tend to get traditionally maligned by his fans, finding merit in the likes of Holy Virgin Versus the Evil Dead and even Iron Monkey 2, despite popular opinion tending to lean towards them being trash. So with an open mind, and enough time having passed for the dust to have settled, I went into Polar Rescue ready to see what Yen the dramatic thespian had to offer.

On reflection, I can now appreciate that I wasn’t ready for the depths of bad cinema that Polar Rescue relentlessly ploughs (pun intended). Perhaps no one could ever be. Opening with Yen and his family (a wife and 2 kids) taking a vacation in the snowy vistas of North East China, within the first 10 minutes we’re subjected to one of the most abhorrent 8-year-old kids ever committed to the screen. Played by Yuan Jinhui (who’d play the young Donnie Yen in the following years Sakra), upon learning bad weather has closed a road to a lake he really wanted to visit, he proceeds to throw the tantrum of all tantrums. Hurling blocks of snow at the local deer population, causing a car accident by standing in the middle of the road, calling his Dad a bastard, and even throwing his Mum onto the snowy ground! It’s been a while since such a hateful juvenile graced the screen.

When he runs into a nearby building to sulk, Yen understandably drives the family off to find a bathroom, leaving him behind to learn a lesson on the importance of being a fine upstanding citizen. Of course a few minutes later Yen comes back to pick up his ungrateful offspring, only to discover he’s nowhere to be found, which gradually escalates into a full-blown Polar Rescue! Look, I know kids can be annoying and don’t always understand the magnitude of their actions at such a young age, but the way Jinhui acts here simply doesn’t transfer into relatable cinematic language. It’s actually a relief for the audience to find he’s disappeared, except we’re only 10 minutes in, and now going to spend the next 90 watching every man and his dog attempt to look for him. In a parallel universe the economical storytelling of establishing the rescue within the first 10 minutes could be a positive, but here it has the opposite effect.

As it happens, it turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, with Yen similarly clocking in by far the most gratingly bad performance of his career, even more so than in 2014’s The Monkey King (which I find to be unwatchable). He may have felt confident enough in his acting abilities to be a dramatic lead, but it’s clear that confidence was misplaced, or to put it in the words of one character, he’s an “arrogant fool”. The likes of Wilson Yip (Ip Man) and Peter Chan (Wu Xia) may have been able to extract subtly understated performances from Yen, but in a role that requires regular histrionic fuelled outbursts and intense emoting, there’s not a single scene where Yen convinces us he’s anyone except Donnie Yen trying to act.

Proceeding to spend the rest of the runtime alternating between shouting “Lele!” (his sons name) and getting in the way of the rescue teams search activities, Yen struggles both with his own performance limitations and a dreadfully one-dimensional script. What’s more painful is that its Lo Chi-Leung in the director’s chair, a solid Hong Kong director responsible for the likes of 2000’s Double Tap and 2015’s The Vanished Murderer, who here finds himself helming his first ‘Main melody’ movie. In fact Polar Rescue’s gradual shift into ‘Main melody’ territory is one which feels surprising but, considering the subject matter, not unexpected. Once the SAR (Search and Rescue – here getting a 2^nd showcase after Dante Lam’s The Rescue in 2020) Team arrives onscreen there’s a somewhat awkward shift away from Yen and his frantic gesticulating, and one that moves towards focusing on how awesome the team are at what they do.

Ironically most of the awesomeness we get to see has nothing to do with their search efforts, and everything to do with their constant rescuing of Yen, who keeps putting himself in danger like a village idiot. At one point he goes off alone and starts wading through a stream, only to collapse from exhaustion and start floating away before being rescued (although the scene is so badly acted and put together, it was only after a local police officer arrived that it became clear what was going on – before it just looks like Yen wants to float along the current while deep in thought). In another he decides to try and cross a river alone as he can “hear Lele calling”, causing the SAR Team to chase after him so he doesn’t get swept away.

At its worst, in what’s possibly the most cringe worthy scene in Yen’s whole career (yes, even more than that jumping for joy moment that closes out Special ID!), when the SAR Team is ready to throw in the towel Yen understandably begs them to carry on. After a connection is revealed between the team’s veteran commander and the current team lead (non-spoiler: the former rescued the latter when he was just a child), the pair start singing an old communist song that kept them going at the time, which gradually sees the rest of the team (and there’s a lot of them!) join in. All of this takes place while Yen paces around the room, hands clasped together in thankfulness, as the songs lyrics espouse how they must carry on and never give up. Sadly its also an indicator that Polar Rescue is still some distance away from the end credits.

Other themes are introduced with an equal amount of subtlety, with one character turning up for the sole purpose of recommending to Yen’s wife that she post about their missing son on social media, the goal being that the more people who are looking for him the greater the chance of him being found. The already out of place conversation then attempts to segue into a precautionary tale about the evils of social media, as the story spins out of control and fake sightings start coming in thick and fast. Yen is even dumb enough to fall for a scam from kidnappers who ask for a ransom to have his son returned, which seems to be there just to give Yen an opportunity to hit someone in the head with a brick. In some ways Polar Rescue can be said to be an interactive experience, as being hit with a brick is a little bit what watching it feels like.

Frankly the first time for Donnie Yen and Lo Chi-Leung to work together has little to recommend, being a frequently overwrought and ridiculously conceived train wreck, one that seems insistent on making its audience feel as spiteful as possible towards its existence. Containing what must be a record for the number of scenes that feature a character have a single tear roll down their cheek, a hilariously grandiose death scene, and even a reminder that “education in China is good”, Polar Rescue is about as misguided as it gets. As for Donnie Yen, we’ve seen him play an angry cop character what feels like 100 times over, but if this is the alternative, I’ll happily watch him play one 100 times more.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 2/10