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Edmund Lee

3/5 stars
Donnie Yen Ji-dan tries his hand at a legal drama with The Prosecutor, playing a police inspector so aggrieved by court system injustice that he quits the force to become a lawyer for the prosecution – only to keep investigating cases and doing everything a policeman does anyway.
Arriving at a time when the Hong Kong audience is showing a keen appetite for court dramas with nuanced views on the city’s law enforcement environment (see The Sparring Partner and A Guilty Conscience), The Prosecutor instead opts for a more simplistic understanding of what justice entails.
Any concern that Yen might be all talk and no action is banished when his character, Fok Chi-ho, leads an all-guns-blazing police mission to arrest a bad guy – filmed in the style of a first-person shooter game – in the thrilling opening scene.


When said criminal gets off on a technicality in the legal court, the righteous Fok passes the police baton to his protégé, Wai (Michael Cheung Tin-fu), and goes on to study law over the next seven years with the intention of making himself a member of the Department of Justice.
In a scenario not unlike that in A Guilty Conscience, Fok’s first case involves a wrongly accused defendant on the brink of grave injustice: the destitute teenager Ma Ka-hit (Zero to Hero’s Fung Ho-yeung), who is about to be convicted of drug trafficking after he is maliciously advised by his defence lawyer to plead guilty.
It makes for an amusing, even slightly inspiring, watch as the debutant prosecutor damages his own case to help the defendant in court, much to the annoyance of his hardened DOJ superior (Francis Ng Chun-yu) and the seasoned judge (Michael Hui Koon-man) presiding over the hearings.
It is a shame that the film then morphs into a conventional thriller to look at the nefarious activities of Au Pak-man (Julian Cheung Chi-lam), the drug dealer posing as a legal executive in Ma’s case. The action-packed climax, which sees Yen beat up dozens of criminals and drag a witness to court, is fun but ridiculous.

Marking Yen’s swift return to the director’s seat after the 2023 wuxia epic Sakra, The Prosecutor offers a fluffy mix of entertainment that most viewers should be happy with: great action from the martial arts star and a frivolous representation of justice.
Then again, considering that he is a vocal supporter of the Hong Kong police, it is perhaps wishful thinking for anyone to ever expect a hard-hitting drama from Yen to meaningfully question the integrity of Hong Kong’s judiciary, as The Prosecutor fleetingly seems to do in its first half.
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Donnie Yen in a still from The Prosecutor.

Donnie Yen in a still from The Prosecutor (category IIB, Cantonese), directed by Donnie Yen. Julian Cheung and Michael Hui co-star.



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The Prosecutor offers great action from Donnie Yen but with its simplistic representation of justice, don’t expect a hard-hitting drama


The Prosecutor offers great action from Donnie Yen but with its simplistic representation of justice, don’t expect a hard-hitting drama.


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Review

Review | The Prosecutor: Donnie Yen literally fights for justice in action-packed court drama

The Prosecutor offers great action from Donnie Yen but with its simplistic representation of justice, don’t expect a hard-hitting drama