Hong Kong action gets a gonzo mash-up with courtroom drama in Donnie Yen’s The Prosecutor
We’re in a weird couple of months for theatrical releases right now, like at the beginning of every year. Fortunately, if you’re tired of catching up on awards bait or watching the dregs of Hollywood’s traditional dumping ground, there are some video-on-demand releases that offer an entertaining alternative. One such movie is Donnie Yen’s (John Wick: Chapter 4, Ip Man) latest: The Prosecutor.
This dizzying mash-up of courtroom melodrama and action fury may be just what you need to shake off the winter blues.
Yen, a megastar in Hong Kong cinema and familiar to American audiences for his roles in John Wick: Chapter 4, Ip Man and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, plays Fok Chi Ho, a police officer injured in the line of duty. After witnessing the court system allow a criminal to walk free due to an oversight, Fok feels betrayed, compelling him to turn in his badge and become a lawyer. Seven years later, Fok secures a position with the Department of Justice, where he’s paired with senior prosecutor Bao Ding (Kent Cheng Jak-Si).
Fok’s first case seems like an easy win. A young man (Mason Fung Ho-Yeung) with no priors is arrested on drug possession charges, even though he maintains his innocence. Persuaded by a high-profile lawyer (Julian Cheung) and their colleague (Shirley Chan Yan-Yin), the young man pleads guilty, hoping for a reduced sentence. Unfortunately, the opposite occurs. Sensing something’s amiss, Fok goes looking for the truth, putting him at odds with the head prosecutor at the DOJ (Francis NG) and the very system Fok hoped he could fix.
The Prosecutor is a legal drama, yes, but it’s also an action movie. As director and producer, Yen works with cinematographer Noah Wong Man-Nok to make sure that momentum exists in every scene, not just the fights (and there are fights). A mail parcel goes from origin to its destination via close-up. Canted angles and ferocious pans treat the court like an arena.
Yen and writer Edmond Wong juggle a lot of interesting pieces throughout the film. The plot is inspired by a real-life Hong Kong case, which Yen worked with Wong to reshape to fit his filmmaking style. The result is a Frankenstein effect; a movie that tackles the ways the legal system both helps and hurts the people who pass through it, and lets stuff get silly and far-fetched when layers of conspiracy and various local gangs enter the fray. That combination could be a turnoff for some, but it’s also what makes The Prosecutor so unique.
Minus the martial arts and gunplay, a lot of what’s on display isn’t too far removed from a John Grisham adaptation. But where The Pelican Brief or The Firm feature clandestine meetings with shadowy informants, Yen accentuates scenes like these with bouts of raucous action. A nightclub rooftop fight sees Yen take on a battalion of bouncers, pulling out into a drone shot that circles the commotion before going back in. A suspect chase erupts into a small-scale thug war. A police raid starts with fitful kineticism before shifting into a first-person melee. Wong Man-Nok and action choreographer Takahito Ôuchi are working overtime here.
Logistically, The Prosecutor’s over-the-top elements and genre-melding shouldn’t work. There’s a lot to be said, however, for Yen’s commitment to throwing every fiber of his being into a movie that never has a dull moment. This may not be awards bait, but if you’re looking for committed entertainment and ludicrous action to complement your courtroom dramatics, you won’t find a movie as bizarrely entertaining as this one.
