‘The Surgeon’ Review: Michelle Yeoh Goes All John Wick Taking Her Scalpel To The Bad Guys – Toronto Film Festival
Michelle Yeoh takes her first solo lead role since winning the Best Actress Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once, starring in the gruesome action-thriller The Surgeon, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Written and directed by Roshan Sethi, the film casts Yeoh as Eliza, a veteran surgeon on the brink of retirement who is abducted at gunpoint by criminals and forced to operate on their dying leader, only to turn her medical expertise into a brutal means of self-defence against her captors.
The 92-minute film pairs graphic, anatomically explicit violence with Yeoh's established martial arts prowess, as her character uses surgical precision to incapacitate and kill the gang members holding her hostage. Martin Freeman plays the ailing crime boss Sean, while Yuri Kolokolnikov appears as a menacing henchman; the review praises Yeoh's authenticity and physicality but notes the supporting villains are thinly drawn. Critics highlight the prosthetics work and fight choreography as standout elements of what is described as an inventive, if stomach-churning, entry in the action genre.
In short
- Michelle Yeoh stars in bloody action-thriller The Surgeon, premiering at TIFF
- She plays a surgeon turning medical skills into weapons against captors
- Reviewers praise Yeoh's performance despite the film's graphic violence
Explained simply
Michelle Yeoh, who won the Best Actress Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once, is back with her first solo leading role since that win. She stars in The Surgeon, a violent action-thriller that had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, one of the industry's most prominent launch pads for new films.
Written and directed by Roshan Sethi, the film follows Eliza, an experienced surgeon nearing retirement who is kidnapped and forced to operate on a wounded gang leader, played by Martin Freeman. She then turns her medical skills against her captors in order to survive. Yuri Kolokolnikov also features as one of the criminals holding her.
The film has drawn attention at the festival for combining Yeoh's action credentials with graphic, medically detailed violence, marking a departure in tone from the more fantastical style of her Oscar-winning role.
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