Nadya Gorina, now grown and eager to reach the Ice Cup once pursued by her late mother, is navigating a world where old pressures linger. The family’s longtime mentor and second mother figure, Irina Shatalina, is sidelined by health issues that prevent her from training Nadya for competition. Nadya’s father, Sasha Gorin, now retired from competition and running with the Baikprommash hockey club, becomes a source of tension as Nadya shifts from player to coach. She still loves figure skating, but her father worries about pushing her into a dangerous routine, echoing the fate of her mother.
Nadya’s route forward becomes linked to the rising hockey star Sergei Orlov, who is loaned to Baikprommash for the season. The two young people find themselves drawn to each other, but they must decide what matters more: love or career.
The Ice trilogy unfolds with a sense that time accelerates, reminiscent of a journey through a cosmic loop. The action of the first film, released in 2018, unfolds in the late 2010s, and the mathematics of that era is not easily reconciled with the events on screen. Ice 3, also known as Ledz on some posters, seems to reject a purely beautiful, distant world in favor of a grimmer realism, as international figure skating competitions unfold quietly within Russia’s borders.
This timeline feels paradoxical, yet it helps explain how a franchise started six years ago can birth a legacy sequel: part homage, part remake. Veteran characters pass the baton to fresh faces, who find themselves navigating settings that feel oddly familiar and fraught with tension.
On screen, Nadya Gorina in the present echoes the fate of Nadya Gorina from the past in several ways. She recovers from a serious injury, finds herself entangled with a reckless hockey player, and refuses to give up. The narrative teases at darker turns, including a potential childbirth tragedy, yet it won’t instantly push the series into a different genre. The filmmakers hint at an end to the Ice saga, but nothing is set in stone.
From a thematic standpoint, the franchise revisits familiar motifs: the original Ice is a soft, almost show-like tale born from a provocative idea that Blazing through adversity can be driven by stubborn determination. The third installment continues to explore the idea that personal struggle, competition, and a fierce desire to win can blur the line between sport and sacrifice, with the stakes rising each season.
Another recurrent notion is the belief that one person can move mountains, restoring a disabled athlete to peak form with minimal formal medical training, so long as there is speed, charisma, and relentless drive. The undercurrent remains the thrill of performance, the tension of rivalries, and the urge to push past limits regardless of the odds.
Behind the camera, a shift in leadership brings a different tone. A new director steps in, delivering a work that some critics find sterile in comparison to earlier installments. This stands in contrast to the second film, which bore a bold premise and a kinetic sense of drama, even if it relied on an outrageous setup. Yet the director’s later career has its own momentum, buoyed by the film’s commercial success and a growing audience appetite for this edge-of-seat franchise world. The anticipation around the next Ice entry remains high, though questions about the creator’s trajectory linger.
Among the performances, Anna Savranskaya earns attention as a standout in the casting. Reconnecting with the role since the original film, her portrayal of young love delivers warmth in some moments and a hint of discomfort in others. The line about love surviving in the heart lingers, echoing through Nina Savicheva’s closing notes and leaving a mark on viewers for days to come.
Aside from these strengths, some viewers find the film’s pacing uneven and its conflicts less fresh than expected. The core tension around parental rights remains murky, and Aronova’s character is sometimes pushed too far into the background. Still, the film leans into nostalgia for the six-year-old hit, inviting audiences to ride along on a familiar wave. The soundtrack shifts reflect a broader cultural moment, moving from famous songs to new interpretations that maintain the emotional beat while sounding different enough to feel current.