Despite the two big name stars, this movie about a survival romance in the Antartica is just not bad - it is not especially enjoyable or memorable. It was definitely visually stunning but that is not in and of itself enough - after all, it is a movie not a documentary on Antartica. I tried to like this but while there were some good moments, my overwhelming reaction was that it was boring and forgettable. The love story around an unlikely couple stranded together unexpectedly is not unique but it is a simple formula that often works. The basic problem is that aside from the extremely challenging environment, it must also be super boring to be stranded in Antartica. That is why I have great sympathy for what the two leads were up against. I truly don't think there are that many actors out there that could have been able to pull off this kind of role without ultimately boring the audience. I mean watching someone talk to penguins and seals is only entertaining (to kids) in cartoons. Mark Chao and Yang Zishan did have good chemistry and some of the scenes between them were quite moving. But overall their chemistry was not breathtaking the way it would need to be for this kind of performance that really revolves solely around two characters. Mark Chao's excessive face fur also may have hurt his performance. He is an actor with fantastic facial expressions but in some of the moments that truly mattered the fur really got in the way and his expressions were largely obscured. I suspect this is why he wasn't always convincing in conveying Fuchon's (Chao) love for and dedication to Ruyi (Yang). Indeed, while we can debate over whether he looks better with some face fur, this actor's most successful roles to date have been ones in which he has exposed more face.

It was a also likely a critical mistake to have Ruyi (Yang) break her leg from the very beginning , rendering her pretty much immobile throughout. That left Fuchun a one man show for large chunks of the movie and also limits the scope of the interactions between the couple. While that may well be true to the book, in the movie they could have exercised some artistic license and had her break it later on. After all, Antartica is a very dangerous place with all that slippery ice... it could have ideally occured in the latter half of the movie without much changing the storyline or ending. There was a bit of a Chinese twist to the story at the end that helped at the margin but by then I was falling asleep. While I did like and empathize with the couple, this firmly sticks into the only if you are really bored (for example: stuck in Antartica) and need to pass some time category.