Review: The Prosecutor
Hitting select theaters this past weekend, Donnie Yen directs and stars in the new legal thriller/martial arts action movie The Prosecutor. The film features some fantastic action sequences but sometimes gets bogged down in the legal minutiae of Hong Kong.
Yen plays Fok Chi-Ho, a police officer who decides to become a prosecutor for Hong Kong’s Department of Justice when a criminal he and his team caught is let go due to lack of evidence. On his first case as a prosecutor, Fok is prosecuting a young man named Ma Ka-Kit (Mason Fung), who receives a package of drugs at his residence but claims he only loaned his address to a friend in exchange for money to help him and his grandfather, Uncle Ma (Lau Kong) get out of their debts. Believing he was deceived into pleading guilty by his defense lawyers and that something else is amiss, Fok gets with his former police colleague Lee King-wai (MC Cheung Tin-fu) to figure out what is happening. Yen wanted to deliver some social commentary about the legal system in Hong Kong and how the prosecution side is too focused on convictions and not innocence, but there’s a large portion of the film where it gets really in the weeds regarding the legal process in regards to pleas, retrials, etc. It doesn’t help that the movie is subtitled, so even the most avid viewer of international film and TV may have trouble keeping up with the rapid-fire legal dialogue, and it’s not done in a cinematic or particularly exciting way. Thankfully, the courtroom and legal scenes get more interesting later in the movie, with grand speeches and legal back and forth between the prosecution and defense that you would expect from a legal thriller. The focus on the legal system so extensively also takes away a bit from the movie’s villains, who don’t start making an impact until the film’s second half. Still, there could have been more time to set them up and make their confrontations with Yen have a more exciting build-up.
Where The Prosecutor doesn’t lack is with the action sequences, kicking off with a spectacular police raid that features an insane first-person sequence and some excellent gun and police shield choreography. The movie may have put its best action sequence first but the rest of the sequences in the film are great, like a climactic battle on a subway train where Yen and his foes pretty much demolish the entire train car and a fight on the roof of a nightclub where a seemingly endless group of goons keeps rushing into fight Yen. There is some cool use of drone footage where you see the action sequences from a bird’s eye view that feels unique, and Yen’s physicality and skill are as impressive as ever. MC Cheung holds his own and has some great moments in the action sequences, and Yu Kang as Kam Hang, the main villain’s henchman, is a ferocious and formidable foe for Yen. Yen also gets to show off his charm with some lighter moments, and Kent Chang is also great and hilarious as Bao Ding, the “pupil master” of the Department of Justice, who helps Fok and all the new prosecutors get acclimated.
While The Prosecutor may stumble at times with its dense legal proceedings, Donnie Yen’s masterful action sequences and charismatic performance ultimately make it a compelling blend of high-stakes courtroom drama and electrifying martial arts mayhem.
