THE PROSECUTOR Review: Donnie Yen Knuckles Up And Adjudicates For A Winning Verdict
The Prosecutor opens in theaters on January 10 from Well Go USA.
It is an exciting time to be a Donnie Yen fan – specifically for anyone who has kept up with the 61 year-old martial arts film star post-Wilson Yip’s Sha Po Lang, which hailed a resurgence of Hong Kong action full of gumption and bravado. It was the era of Flash Point as well, as Yen took to his team to showcase a performance of technique and dexterity that remains as fresh as it did to this day, building enough momentum for the actor to branch out a little further to other different roles on both sides of the lens.
Fast forward to 2025 with the last few weeks signaling more local success with his latest project, The Prosecutor, which transitions to U.S. audiences this week from Well Go USA. Mixing action-packed crime thriller with courtroom procedural, The Prosecutor kicks things off with a story point set seven years earlier when a botched raid results in a not-guilty verdict that compels lawman Fok (Yen) to rest his badge and go to law school in hopes of preserving the guard rails to actual justice between the innocent and the guilty.
Seven years later, Fok, now a member of the Department of Justice, is afoot with a new case involving Ma (Mason Fung), a young teenager on the shit end of a shittier deal, and contending with a pair of shady legal opponents who cajole Ma into taking a guilty plea for a lesser charge. With Ma getting the worse end of the deal and facing 27 years in prison, it’s up to Fok to find the root of the stench involving Ma’s legal counsel. The result? A dirty connection that extends to a ruthless drug cartel that manipulates the law for its own ends, and enough blowback for Fok who is tasked with protecting the one key witness in a deadly race against time that will determine if whether or not justice will actually prevail.
The Prosecutor proffers another action drama venture from the Hong Kong star who continues to elevate things a little more, but just a little. Indeed, The Prosecutor allows Yen – as star and director – to play around a little bit with concepts from time to time, although not too much. At the end of the day, it’s a different role for Yen, and offers something a little extra as a vehicle for fan service the like of which should please anyone who’s enjoyed Richard Donner’s 16 Blocks, or more fittingly, the late Corey Yuen’s Righting Wrongs.
Fok is no-nonsense when it comes to the law. The film oftentimes hammers that point home which feels almost a little redundant after a while. Thankfully, this doesn’t take away from seeing Fok face the odds he does, whether its on the street in a chance scrap with goons as seen in the first half of the film with Inspector Li (Michael Cheung) taking point, or the courtroom trading jabs in a battle of wits and wills with the Senior Judge (Michael Hui). The same goes for when Fok is at functions with hobnobbing colleagues who play up their façades, while focused on prioritizing cases at their own convenience. The one thing Fok assures that people see is the human element behind the work they do and the people they serve.
I love that Yen explores telling more drama-heavy tales this time around, which helps make the action feel less numbing to an already-spoiled niche. Yen is surrounded by a bevy of supporting thesps to buff up the acting, including Kent Cheng who plays Bao, Fok’s lead prosecutor at the Department of Justice. Julian Cheung and Shirley Chan are absolutely hateable in their respective roles of legal duo Au and Lee, who are responsible for the worsening predicament young man Ma finds himself in.
Memorable character actors like Mark Cheng and Raymond Lui chime in as the antagonists of choice on the crime end of things. The same goes for actor Yu Kang who has appeared in more than a dozen films with Yen since 2002’s Dragon Tiger Gate. Kang is almost unnoticeable at first until the camera allows a better look at him, setting up another climatic showdown for the Yen crowd.
Fans following the movie for the action won’t be disappointed much either, courtesy of Yen’s loyal team of fall guys, and action director Takahito Ouchi, who has worked with Yen on several titles, in addition to local Japan productions like Keishi Otomo’s Rurouni Kenshin trilogy, the live-action Netflix series “Yu Yu Hakusho,” and live-action adaptations Ajin: Demi-Human, and Cells At Work. The first fight scene is a blazing battle between police and drug dealers, akin to the level of technique and choreography observed in Raging Fire to an extent. Cinematography switches from second-person to first-person for a brief stint of Yen-view action. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but it’s still pure fun to watch.
We’re not too far off from the start of Yen’s next project, which is a sequel to 2007’s Flash Point. Yen still works with many of the team he had back then to this day, and that includes Ouchi, as well as Kenji Tanigaki who will be making a killing this year with his star-studed directorial debut, The Furious. Yen is still growing as a creator himself, but he has come a long way with his crew, as well as an actor and filmmaker. The Prosecutor makes a clear case for that – one I think the audience will otherwise be happy to testify to.
