The Surgeon (TIFF) Review: Michelle Yeoh returns to her roots with this gory action flick

PLOT: A retired surgeon (Michelle Yeoh) is kidnapped and forced to perform surgery on a ruthless gangster (Martin Freeman).

REVIEW: It’s funny, but when modern—or at least younger—audiences think of Michelle Yeoh, their minds go to her highbrow fare like Everything Everywhere All at Once, Crazy Rich Asians, and other movies that cast her as kind of a modern grand dame of cinema. For me, though, I love Yeoh for other reasons, particularly for her killer run of Hong Kong action flicks, like Royal Warriors and Supercop. The Surgeon, which comes from John Wick producers Thunder Road, is a throwback to her rougher fare, with it being a graphically violent thriller that gives her a truly kick-ass action role she seems ideally suited for.

While not a martial arts film, Yeoh is cast as someone with a particular set of skills, with her—in this case—being a renowned surgeon. She’s almost supernaturally gifted with a scalpel, but her career has left little room for anything else in her life, and now that she’s retired, she finds it next to impossible to relate to anyone on a personal level and is bored beyond belief. Yet, when she’s kidnapped by a bunch of thugs who want her to remove an aggressive tumor from a crime lord (Martin Freeman—effectively cast against type), she knows that she’s dead meat as soon as the operation is complete. As such, she has to fight back.

Now, while one might expect Yeoh to break out the kung fu, that’s not what happens here. Her character is not a fighter, but she does have a knowledge of human anatomy that is second to none, and as soon as she gets her hands on her trusty scalpel, she starts cutting up and maiming bad guys in a truly invigorating way. As such, The Surgeon is one of the more exciting movies I saw at TIFF this year.

Running a taut ninety minutes, it helps that it’s directed by Roshan Sethi, who—before he became a writer-director—was actually an M.D. As such, he does an amazing job depicting just how horrifically a surgeon can carve up a body when you get on their wrong side, with some truly ingenious gore moments. Sethi shows a real flair for action, with the medical aspect being a great conceit. Yeoh is clearly relishing her turn, with her also giving the character a rebellious rock ’n’ roll vibe. In fact, she refuses to perform operations without some Thin Lizzy playing, with Sethi working some rock ’n’ roll cuts into the numerous action sequences. The film has an especially effective home invasion sequence that should become a new action fan favorite, while Freeman also portrays a guy you can’t wait to see get his violent comeuppance.

The Surgeon seems like a no-brainer for either a high-end streamer or a genre-focused distribution company to pick up, with it being entertaining, action-packed, and very commercial. But it’s also refreshingly gruesome and doesn’t pull any punches as far as the medical gore goes. Imagine The Pitt if Dr. Robby had to kill a whole whack of bad guys, and you have an inkling of what The Surgeon is.

Michelle Yeoh

GOOD

7

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