The Prosecutor Movie Review: Judge, Jury & Executioner

Donnie Yen sharpens his directing skills with the fun action-thriller The Prosecutor, even if it frequently stumbles in its storytelling. 

In this scene, Yen attempts to elevate the stakes by switching points-of-view in the middle of the action scene, from the third-person to first-person. This could’ve failed, and yet it works so well that one wonders exactly why Yen hasn’t directed many action movies in the past. 

We quickly get our answer, because as impressive and meticulously choreographed as the action scenes may be, the story doesn’t feel like it’s worth our investment. Yen, who directs a script written by Edmond Wong, is incredibly self-referential through the figure he portrays. Constantly discussing his age as the primary reason why he can’t “beat people up” the way he did anymore, Yen – and by extension, Fok – decides to switch gears and play a character that is against the type of powerful martial artists he is known to portray on screen (most recently, in Chad Stahelski’s John Wick: Chapter 4) 

After being badly injured from the film’s opening gunfight, Fok decides to work in the judicial system, most specifically as a prosecutor for the Department of Justice. In isolation, this may prove to be a much calmer environment for Fok to exact justice without physically exhausting himself, or worse, getting even bigger bruises than he did in his last confrontation with criminals. Through the tutelage of veteran pupil master Bao Ding (Kent Cheng), Fok is brought on to prosecute Ma Ka-kit (Mason Fung), a young teenager who has been charged with drug smuggling.

The case sounds simple enough: Ma has already pleaded guilty to avoid serious jail time and will likely get a reduced sentence if he admits his wrongdoings. Fok and Bao initially find nothing wrong with his testimony and think it’s a rather straightforward legal matter. However, once in jail, Ma changes his plea and instead states he was pressured by barristers Au Pak-man (Julian Cheung) and Li Sze-man (Shirley Chan) to plead guilty because they told him he would for sure be locked up, while the real perpetrator of the crime, Chang Kwok-wing (Locker Lam) has been fully exonerated. 

This puts Fok in a rather precarious situation, since the prosecutors make the case for the state to lock up the defendant and prove, without a reasonable doubt, that Ma is guilty. However, and as Fok explains to the Grand Judge (Michael Hui), the prosecution team must also bring the full picture of the case to the attention of the court, which complicates itself when an attempt on the lives of the prosecutor and Ma’s grandfather (Lau Kong) occurs in a parking lot. In that regard, Fok is not only a simple prosecutor, but he eventually acts as the judge, jury, and executioner of the case, demonstrating to us all that the ultimate purveyor of truth will always be justice. 

The Prosecutor is a fun enough time, thanks in no small part to Yen’s action filmmaking skills. I was a bit worried that, when Fok would change jobs, the film’s pacing would grind to a halt. On some occasions, it does, but Fong’s script always brings an excuse to put Yen back in the middle of an action setpiece, where fighting acts as his only way out. It does seem a bit hypocritical for Yen to continuously say that he’s too old and can’t fight anymore, only for him to topple an endless swarm of security guards on a nightclub rooftop two scenes later. 

I do think that this is part of what makes the film work, even if the story leaves much to be desired. Many of its most emotional beats are telegraphed and can be seen a mile away, such as how the script repeatedly bludgeons the audience over the head that a specific character will die by always making them say variations of “I won’t be around for long” because of their age. Even worse, extended flashbacks that depict Ma’s dark childhood feel uncomfortably exploitative, not only in how the film depicts drug addiction, but child abuse. 

Ma’s grandfather took custody of the boy, because of her mother’s drug addiction sending her into a spiral of neglect and violence. When she beats her son so violently that he had to be sent to the hospital, Uncle Ma’s response is to kick the mother in the stomach. Would this have been a problem if the scene had been treated with seriousness and care? Some may debate on this, but that specific moment is played for laughs, as Fok and inspector Lee King-wai (MC Cheung Tin-fu) find it quite funny that an old man would do this. 

That scene didn’t sit well with me at all, and lingered throughout most of The Prosecutor’s runtime, no matter the fun I had watching Yen kick all sorts of ass. The legal commentary, while well-intentioned at first, slowly morphs into state-approved nonsense when it was never about “exacting justice,” but about showing how the system in place has always been good if people know how to use it. We even get a moment that resembles quite closely as the “I resign today as president of the bank” from Neil Breen’s Fateful Findings that turned this compelling action-drama into a whole lot of nothing.

Because as predictable and as mawkish as the intrigue may get, Yen knows how to juggle three genres in one: the martial arts actioner we’re all seated in the theater for, the police procedural, and the courtroom drama. One of the three is more compelling than the others, but they’re all effectively weaved together. And since Yen has always been a skillful performer beyond flashy action, his dedication to the police-turned-prosecutor role seems boundless. 

As a result, The Prosecutor ended up winning me over, despite the strong reservations I had with its story and thematic underpinnings. As the runtime progresses, the narrative begins to complexify itself further, adding more characters and legal conspiracies than a Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney game. Some of them may be over-the-top, but The Prosecutor still ends up overcoming most of its shortcomings thanks to a game Donnie Yen behind the camera crafting some truly nifty action setpieces that could rank high as some of the year’s very best. And I’m easy to please. Put Donnie Yen in a situation where he’s prone to fight (even in Soi Cheang’s The Monkey King, where he’s caked in prosthetics), and provided it’s shot with some verve and is well-choreographed enough, it’s movie magic. This is no exception.

The Prosecutor was released in theaters in the US & Canada on January 10, 2025.