'The Prosecutor' Review: Donnie Yen’s Ambitious Genre Hybrid Is Guilty of Missed Opportunities

As the adage goes, justice is blind: by that, of course, they mean it's unbiased. In The Prosecutor, both starring and directed by modern martial arts legend Donnie Yen, Yen plays a prosecutor who finds justice blind in a different sense: there's a Justice System that closes its eyes to actual justice. Yen's prosecutor proceeds as any good state representative does, and punches justice in the face until its eyes open. It's an interesting genre hybrid with some exceptional moments of action and strong character work, but there's a lack of balance between different plot threads and tones that keep the film from succeeding as a unified whole.

What is 'The Prosecutor' About?

In The Prosecutor, Yen plays Fok Chi-ho, a former police detective who turns public prosecutor in an effort to secure more consistent justice for the community. His first case revolves around a drug smuggling ring, but a young man on trial, Ma (Mason Fung), is encouraged by his defense attorney Li (Shirley Chan) and corrupt legal executive Au (Julian Cheung) encourage him to plead guilty. He's railroaded and sentenced to 27 years, which sends Fok Chi-ho on a quest for justice that increasingly reveals there are powerful players (and deep corruption) at play.

'The Prosecutor' Is a Decent Genre Hybrid in Need of a Better Balance

The Prosecutor is an interesting project for Yen for a number of reasons. It's directed by Yen, and is reportedly based on a true story. It's also an interesting genre hybrid: part legal thriller, part martial arts outing. Screenwriter Edmond Wong (known for scripting Yen outings like the brilliant Ip Man, co-written with Chan Tai-lee) manages to capably find reasons to include motions of marital arts conflict amidst what's essentially a legal drama. (Hint: the drug lords at the heart of the film's conspiracy really want to keep witnesses away). Still, the film strikes an uneasy overall tonal balance amidst a mashup of wildly distinct genres.

Yen gives a strong performance as Fok Chi-ho, believable in the character's against-all-odds search for justice. He also lands the film's fight choreography (as is to be expected from the star), including some excellent and outlandish set pieces (like a wonderfully executed parking garage battle and a memorable sequence in public transit). Julian Cheung provides a complex antagonist in Au Pak-man, though a little under-utilized. Other standouts include MC Cheung Tin-fu as Fok Chi-ho's charismatic former police ally Lee King-wai, and Kent Cheng as Department of Justice vet Bao Ding. The varied players all excel, though they're not equally well utilized given that the film's difficulties in balancing different worlds produce muted opportunities for some cast members.

As a whole, The Prosecutor boasts a strong concept that doesn't entirely land. The courtroom drama largely works, establishing why a character would get so frustrated with the limitations of the law that they'd take matters beyond it. On the other hand, the pure lack of legal recourse frequently translates into diminished tension in the courtroom scenes once one realizes the payoff will be in the streets. Additionally, there's an uneasy balance between the halves: not quite enough legal drama to be a solid legal thriller, and martial arts moments coming a little too inconsistently. It's a capably directed outing, and Yen has a strong understanding of how to stage and shoot innovative martial arts sequences, but the overall impact is limited by the script.

'The Prosecutor' Has Too Many Missed Opportunities

The Prosecutor is an interesting genre hybrid that in many ways showcases the flexibility of martial arts films. Films that feature martial arts have a long history of hybridizing with genres as diverse as comedy (think Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow), epics (drop everything and watch Red Cliff or a number of world-class Samurai films), fantasy (like wuxia films), westerns (famously, Kung Fu), or even the occasional sports film (like Chow's Shaolin Soccer), but The Prosecutor reveals the extent of untapped potential. That said, it's not entirely successful. The divergent genres fail to truly converge, producing missed opportunities. The idea is good, but in practice The Prosecutor doesn't fully feel like a legal drama, nor does it feel like a martial arts film. It's a decent film with strong direction, but laden with regrettable missed opportunities.

The Prosecutor is now playing in theaters.

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