An arrogant businessman demands his charter flight to Antarctica take off as scheduled, despite inclement weather, resulting in the plane crashing and killing everyone on board.

THE END.

Not quite the Meet-Cute but pretty close.

No, not really. Though you could make an interesting movie with that beginning, in this movie, arrogant businessman (ABM) survives the crash, along with science nerd girl, who is ridiculously beautiful for a science nerd girl but, you know, Asian, so it’s almost believable. (I kid! My momma was a science nerd girl!) But science nerd girl (SNG) has a broken leg, and they’re going to freeze to death shortly ’cause, you know, Antarctica.

They find a little shack that ABM carries SNG to, allowing them to survive the first day, and ABM must apply first aid to SNG’s broken leg under her direction. Just for starters. SNG—a seasoned Antarctic expeditioner—realizes that the shack must be an abandoned station she’s heard about, and that the currently populated station is about 20 miles from their current location. She doesn’t know where they are and she doesn’t know where it is, of course, so ABM must venture out to find other humans.

It’s somewhere on this icy thing.

What follows is a series of increasingly harrowing events that mark ABM’s transition from successful-but-ultimately-unserious-businessman to hard-core-survivor, as he endures blizzards, snow blindness, bottomless pits and, perhaps worst of all, falling in love.

Yes, this is a love story. It’s an action/adventure love story, which is possibly the best kind. Mark Chao who plays ABM, and Zishan Yang, who plays SNG, struggle for survival in the cold, and it’s just wonderful. Chao gives the bolder performance, because he’s really the main character and the arc is his. But Yang gives a subtle performance that is simply beautiful as well. There is a terrific moment where ABM comes back after nearly freezing to death and SNG disrobes and warms him with her body. There’s no real nudity, and it’s done in a very modest, chaste way that makes it especially sweet. (No American movie would be able to do that.)

This is after a previous scene where the two, having grown fond of each other, clash because she wants to bathe and he doesn’t want to leave when she does—he’s snow blind, as he argues! She makes him anyway.

Cute. Sweet. But REALLY hard to find stills without freakin’ writing on them.

It’s sweet, in other words. And the sweetness makes it work at a higher level. They’re literally struggling for survival, but they’re not barbarians, dammit. At the last possible moment, they marry each other in an impromptu ceremony—and he goes out on one last expedition while she expects to stay there and die. (But she insists.)

The ending of the movie. This is also one of the greatest movie endings I’ve seen for a love story in a while. There’s a last minute rescue, followed by a shocking disaster, followed by a sudden realization, and a reuniting of the couple. I think, if we’re being strict, literal, and hard-ass then death almost certainly must be involved. But the movie doesn’t give us that. It gives us a happy, spiritual ending. And you can believe what you want to. I think The Boy preferred to believe that it was a literal happy ending as well, too.

The Boy absolutely loved it and named it his top movie for 2018 so far, which may not seem like much, but no other movie has been even in the running.

The spirituality aspect of the movie is fascinating, too. SNG is a Buddhist, ABM relates a lot of information given to him by his psychic, and there’s a Mary statue in the shack, presumably leftover from the Russians(?) who previously dwelt there. It’s interesting the span of spirituality from pagan bone-casting to Hail, Mary that Chinese people are comfortable with. I liked it.

And I loved the movie! Check it out, if you can. Shot in the Antarctic, allegedly, though with tasteful (if obvious) CGI touches.

The course of true love never…Oh, what? I’m trapped in an ice cave? I’m out…