Polar Rescue (Blu-Ray) Review

We are all unfortunately mortal, despite most of us wishing to be otherwise. This is extremely true when it comes to action stars. While we might enjoy them performing death defying stunts, drag-out fights, and hair raising escapes, eventually time catches up with those performances. The great action stars have to develop, expand their craft and find a way to continue to produce entertaining films without alienating their original fan base. One such person who has been able to do this is Donnie Yen. Donnie is well known for his Ip Man films, and he was wonderful in John Wick 4 as well as other high intensity films. However, as of late, he’s dived into some comedy as well as some thrillers. By thrillers, I am referring to films where Donnie is not performing high flying martial arts, but rather ones where he is acting more as “the common man”. Today’s film is Polar Rescue (also known as Come Back Home) where he plays a dad trying to find his lost son in the frozen wilderness. Let’s see how it turns out.

Ah De (played by Donnie Yen) and Xuan (played by Cecilia Han) have fun with their kids in the snow near the Changbai Mountains. Later, Ah De shows his son, Lele (played by Yuan Jinhui) how to scoop up a goldfish properly. But it looks like this trip has come to an end as the family sit in their red SUV and discuss their plans for going home. Ah De really wants to get some rest and thinks they really should get back to Shen Zhen. However, the kids really want to go to Lake Tian because that’s where they heard about a mythical sea monster. But the road is closed, and it’s honestly going to be too dangerous. The kids continue to persist. Ah De eventually relents and leaves the vehicle to talk to some locals about an alternate route. After some discussion, he is told about the road he needs and gets back in the vehicle to continue to the new destination.

Down the unmarked road we go, and the SUV runs over something in the road. Ah De stops to take a look and realizes he’s stuck in a ditch. The wife, Xuan gets out to help her husband figure out a way to get them moving again. The first instinct to push doesn’t work as hoped. The second idea is to get a piece of wood and create a resistance where they can get out of the snow. While the couple is trying to make this work, Lele also gets out of the car, complains a bit and tosses snowballs at nearby wildlife. After he gets bored of that, he spots another vehicle approaching and waves his hands trying to get the vehicle to stop. At the same time that Ah De and Xuan are finally able to get the SUV out of the snow is the exact time that the approaching vehicle tries to stop and also swerves nearly into the family’s vehicle. They stop mere inches from each other (I honestly thought they hit).

The driver gets out of the vehicle and scolds the family. The driver takes off in a huff and speeds down the icy road. Ah De then gives his son, Lele an equally strong tongue lashing for being in the middle of the road. The kid gets ticked off, runs away and hides in a nearby dwelling (not sure you really call it a house) and refuses to come out. De decides to teach his son a lesson, and leaves the son in the middle of the wilderness. De proceeds with his wife and daughter for a nearby forest farm where he drops off the rest of the family before going back to fetch his son and see if he has learned about disobeying his father.

Ah De makes the drive 5-10 minutes back to find his son. Naturally, he can’t find him, not at the location he left him at, not anywhere near that place. In fact, Lele is nowhere to be found at all and has disappeared. Frantic, the father continues to drive around and hope that he is somewhere in this frozen landscape. Finally, the father decides to give up despite searching high and low for Lele. He rejoins his family and they take off for a nearby police station to report their son missing. As we see on the screen, the day is December 20th, Lele has been missing for one hour, and it will be a race to recover his son, especially alive.

When the family makes the police station, they don’t exactly get a warm and inviting reception. In fact, it takes a little while to get a search going and I never felt except near the end that the police really wanted to be on the family’s side (especially Ah De, the father) throughout this ordeal. Donnie Yen does a fantastic job of portraying a non-typical movie father. Considering that this is Donnie Yen, we are expecting a super-dad both in survival skills and moral character. We do not get that at any point in the film. What we get is a very real father, complete with flaws and unfortunately Ah De is not suited to be helping with the search but continues to do so anyway out of guilt and wanting to do the right thing. I can very much see my own father wanting to teach me a lesson and would have left me in the wilderness for about half an hour (and expected me to be there when he got back).

Now, I’m completely different in my parenting style but at the same time I understand wanting to teach a kid the hard lessons of life. Kids can be very difficult no matter how well you bring them up (and Lele is certainly on the top 10 list of most annoying kids ever), but they are still your child at the end of the day so you want to keep them safe and do right by them. Personally, I very much felt the father’s doubt in his own parenting skills and disdain for his own well being. I also agreed with the portrayal of the police officers and search team as it was very negative at their introduction and it took a long time to win over the support of the officers (and only a few of them at that).

On the negative side, the wife’s quickness to turn against her own husband (assuming she was ever with him to begin with) was quite disconcerting. In addition, it’s hard to build up any sympathy towards Lele outside of the fact that he’s a kid. It really takes a father who loves his kids no matter what to really understand the dynamic on display. I think most people are going to have a hard time identifying with the movie, in particular American audiences who are looking for their next IP Man fix. But despite all of this, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit and much like Chasing the Dragon (which also found Donnie in a non-traditional role and also received negative feedback), I found myself wanting to keep this as part of my permanent collection.

Video

The video is in 2.39:1 widescreen. This film was captured in the Changbai Mountains which incidentally is the same shooting location as Donnie’s Iceman films. The film looks magnificent and there are a lot of wonderful shots with the snow and mountains captured on film. It’s beautiful, and those who like to chew up the winter scenery will have a lot to enjoy with Polar Rescue. The only negatives is that I assume a lot of these shots, especially with the avalanche involved CGI and it is pretty obvious in that aspect. However, the video was exactly on point and there are no problems with the scenes with a lot of great detail throughout. If only Well Go did more 4k’s (but I get they have to be choosy with the ones they put out).

Audio

The audio for this one is 5.1 DTS-HD MA in Mandarin (DD 2.0 in Mandarin also provided). Subtitles are provided in English and can be turned off (if so desired). The sound was a ton of fun, probably about the best 5.1 track I have heard in quite some time. Everything from fireworks to blizzards to helicopters give the surround speakers a workout and create a very active and intensity filled picture. Dialog has no issues, and I didn’t notice anything odd about the subtitles as they seemed on point. Maybe if they went balls to the wall with an ATOMS type track I would give it a perfect score, but honestly I have zero complaints. This should fit right in with The Grey, Wind River, or The Revenant if you like high octane wintery films.

Special Features

Trailers: Bad City, Ride On, and Eye for an Eye: Blind Swordsman
Note: A slipcover was included as well but no further extras.

Final Thoughts

From what I can find, this film did not do particularly well at the box office debuting at #8 on the Chinese market. This is also the first film directed by Lo Chi-leung since his 2015’s The Vanished Murder. With that said, I enjoyed the movie. I feel that while the father is not very likeable, he is a sympathetic character because he’s a lot more real than most movie dads with their son in peril pictures. However, this usually requires the son to be a sympathetic character too and that is one area where the film is completely lacking. If you are looking for Donnie Yen to be in a film that leans more towards a suspenseful drama then I think you will be pleasantly surprised by Polar Rescue.

The disc represents another fine effort by Well Go with fantastic video and audio. The only problem is that there are no extras to be had except for the slipcover if that counts. If you enjoyed Donnie Yen’s Chasing the Dragon or have a penchant for winter thriller films, this is one I would certainly pick up. Especially for those dads who aren’t perfect but desperately wish they were. Recommended and enjoy.