Michelle Yeoh's killer-surgeon film was directed by a working doctor, and it still has no release date
Michelle Yeoh chalks up yet another belter of an actioner — and, happily, it absolutely lands.
Every now and then you get a film that feels like it’s custom-built for its lead, and The Surgeon is exactly that for Michelle Yeoh. If you’ve been keeping score since she smacked blokes around in Yes, Madam (1985), all the way through Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and right up to her Oscar win for Everything Everywhere All At Once, you'll know Yeoh is an action legend — and remarkably, still up for new tricks.
This time, she's starring as Eliza, a veteran surgeon who’s being nudged out into retirement (ageism, anyone?) after decades of patching people up. But just as she’s on the way out, she gets kidnapped to save the life of a criminal, played by Martin Freeman (yes, the one from The Office and The Hobbit, now menacing instead of mild-mannered). Eliza ends up forced to operate both scalpel and knuckle, battling her captors as her surgical know-how becomes surprisingly handy for dispatching thugs as well as sewing up arteries.
The Surgeon still hasn’t got a release date, but it’s already scored nothing but positive reviews out of the gate.
What the critics reckon
The early word from critics is about as upbeat as it gets. Joonatan Itkonen called it "a wild and unexpected thrill from start to finish… the action is inventive and shocking, and I could never guess where the film would go next." Travis Hopson was equally enthusiastic, noting that it’s "a fantastic role for Yeoh" and that Freeman holds his own as the villain, but this is, without question, Yeoh’s show from start to finish.
One bit of flavour the film’s getting credit for: director Roshan Sethi is actually a practicing physician. He’s already got credits on The Resident – he co-created that hospital drama and still pulls shifts at a real-life hospital in his spare time. This means when things get gory, they at least do so with the right anatomical detail, because Sethi apparently loves a cutaway shot inside the body. Here’s Gregory Ellwood for The Playlist, who was keen on how the film finds room for all the medical accuracy:
‘The filmmaker does a fantastic job sometimes demonstrating, sometimes explaining, how Eliza takes down each of her adversaries… As Eliza makes one stab or slice after another, Sethi will cut to a shot inside the body or a portion of the body without skin, to make it all as medically accurate as possible. For the most part, it’s a pretty creative, although admittedly gruesome, choice.’
Not just another John Wick knock-off
It’s hard to make your mark with action flicks anymore – there’s no end of muscle-bound John Wick imitators these days. But The Surgeon’s got Basil Iwanyk producing (he also wrangled every John Wick sequel), so if anyone’s got the recipe for crowd-pleasing violence, it’s him.
- Michelle Yeoh as Eliza, the surgeon with more than just sharp scalpels
- Martin Freeman gets a villain turn as the desperate criminal
- Written and directed by Roshan Sethi, with that medical background giving it a smug bit of credibility
If you want to nitpick, a few reviewers have said that while The Surgeon "might not break new ground" (cheers, Jared Mobarak), it still messes with the action formula just enough to keep things fresh. Gregory Ellwood does mention that the film can look "a little too drab at times," but between the bloody set pieces and Yeoh battering villains, nobody seems too fussed. For now, there’s no word on a specific release date, but anytime Michelle Yeoh gets to throw a punch and a suture in the same film, it’s probably worth more than a passing glance.