Min De (Donnie Yen, Ip Man franchise) and his wife Xuan (Cecilia Han, The Golden Doll) are just finishing up their family vacation to the snowy mountains in late December, along with their 8-year-old son Lele and younger daughter. De promises Lele that he will take him to see the Lake Tian monster before they head home the next day, but the weather starts acting up and their car gets stuck in the snow on a Songhe forest road. So he decides to call it off and head back to their hotel, but this causes Lele to throw a tantrum—yelling, cursing at, and hitting his father. De has a bit of a temper and screams at his son, who runs off to a nearby cabin. De decides to teach his son a lesson, leaving Lele behind as he drives off with the rest of the family. However, when he returns a half-hour later, there is no sign of Lele. After a desperate search, he heads to the police station, where Chief Bai (Tianlai Hou) doesn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency as De to find his son.
Captain Xiao Jiang (Bing Jia) is put in charge of the search effort—organizing a large search and rescue team comprised of the Songhe SAR Team as well Baiyun, a team of civilian SAR professionals—to look for the boy. But as the hours and days tick away, the chances of finding Lele alive get less and less likely, especially as the weather conditions constantly deteriorate. And it doesn’t help that De is constantly trying to take control of the rescue effort, and disobeys the police orders. Meanwhile, Xuan meets a young woman in her hotel who suggests posting about her missing son on the internet to rile up community support. However, this only makes the situation worse, introducing false new leads, and pitting the journalists against both De for purposely abandoning his son, and the police for not having found the boy. As guilt overcomes De, and his marriage is on the brink of collapse, can he find his son before it’s too late?!
The title and cover art for this film are a bit misleading. When you see the title “Polar Rescue” with action star Donnie Yen on the cover in mountain climbing gear, you’re likely expecting some big action/disaster film. However, this is much more of a character drama about a grieving father looking back on his life with regret, with a couple of action sequences thrown in. The more common English title for this film is Come Back Home, which fits the actual tone of the movie far better. De is not a very likeable guy. Despite his son Lele being a complete brat, he shouldn’t have driven off leaving him out in the cold. When he and his wife get to the police station, he’s constantly yelling at the cops to do their job, when it’s his own fault his son is missing—he chose to abandon him. And once the cops do decide to help, he’s constantly disobeying their orders, running off on his own and causing more issues and putting more people in danger. Through flashbacks, we see that De isn’t always the greatest father, often more consumed by his work than spending time with his children, usually leaving all of the parenting to his wife. The film is more of a redemption story for De, in his desperate search for his son, he’s looking back at all his faults, and hopes that he can at least do one thing right—save his son.
The film does have a couple of action-packed twists and turns, but it is far from the typical Donnie Yen martial arts action fare. He’s not taking down bad guys with his fighting skills, but rather, dealing with some dangerous situations caused by snow and ice. Throughout the film, we get these flashbacks and/or dream sequences that look very stylized compared to the rest of the movie, mostly presented in full frame or window boxed format, with bright colors. These help to show the relationship between De and his family before they went on this trip, as well as De’s idealized view of what a happy marriage/family could be like for him. I wish the disc had included some sort of commentary or bonus material to hear from the director as to the choice/significance of the different look for these scenes.
While the story eventually becomes clear, I found the initial editing of the film to be a bit odd and unnecessarily confusing. After we see De and Lele fight, the film immediately cuts to the family back in the car and driving to stop for a bathroom break. However, we aren’t initially told that Lele is not with them or that he even ran off/was purposely left behind. There is some vague mention of going back to get him in the dialogue, but we don’t actually see what happened until a flashback a short time later. It feels like an odd choice not to just show this chronologically. There is also some other editing in scenes later on that don’t really make sense, with the wife, Xuan, being inexplicably present at every big discovery and incident moments after they happen, despite her not actually being part of the search party.
Overall, Yen tries to deliver an emotional performance as this father who regrets his decisions in life and is trying to redeem himself. However, I just didn’t really find his character to be that likeable, and the film fails to take advantage of the actor’s more physical talents. Plus I found the film’s final act to be a little over-the-top and unbelievable despite the rest of the movie being more grounded and character-driven.
Well Go’s Blu-ray looks good and sounds great. The picture is generally clean and clear, with a solid level of detail. The special effects are really well done. Often in movies when people are caught in a massive snowstorm, the snowfall looks like an obvious CG overlay, but here the constantly blustering snowflakes look natural and real. And later on, as the elements get worse, you really feel like the rescue team is in peril. The film is only offered in its original Mandarin language, but the English subtitles are well-written and easy to understand. And the audio track makes nice use of the stereo and surround channels to provide an immersive feeling, putting the viewer into the frigid elements along with this rescue team.
Well Go’s Blu-ray release is a barebones, just including the film’s trailer and some previews for three other Well Go films as bonus material. The Blu-ray comes packed in a locking HD keepcase. There is no digital copy, but our review copy did include a nice cardboard slipcover.
What’s Included:
Film: (1:42:20)
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Blu-ray:
- 1080p / Widescreen 2.39:1
- Audio: Mandarin 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Mandarin Stereo
- Subtitles: English
Extras:
- Trailer (1:50)
- Previews
- Bad City (1:54)
- Ride On (1:27)
- Eye For An Eye: The Blind Swordsman (1:36)
Final Thoughts:
Despite what the title and cover art imply, Polar Rescue is not really an action movie, but more of a character drama about a father looking back on his life with regret, and desperately trying to save his missing son in hopes of finding some sort of redemption. Donnie Yen fans may want to check this out for a different type of performance by the actor, but don’t go into it expecting the actor’s usual martial arts-filled action/adventure fare. Well Go’s Blu-ray release features solid picture and sound, but no bonus material or English dub option.
Polar Rescue [Blu-ray]
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