Six years ago, Hong Kong martial artist Donnie Yen told his wife that he was going to retire. He has thankfully not yet fulfilled that promise. Since 2018, Yen not only stole all of his scenes in “John Wick: Chapter 4,” but also acted, produced, and directed two very entertaining action movies. The first of these two star vehicles, the wuxia martial arts thriller “Sakra,” sadly did not find its audience when it debuted two years ago. That earlier movie was a period piece, while “The Prosecutor,” a police procedural that’s also a courtroom drama, takes place in the present day. These two recent projects are otherwise similar in their assured presentation of Yen’s righteous on-screen persona.
You can see Yen searching for the best ways to showcase himself in many of his recent movies and well before his hit “Ip Man” series. “The Prosecutor” sees him once again playing a paternal, demure maverick and would-be role model. As the celebrated cop turned prosecuting attorney Fok Chi-ho, Yen goes where he’s already gone a few times before with varying degrees of success (remember “Big Brother”?). Fok may not play well with others, but he also knows when the Department of Justice isn’t living up to his, I mean their own lofty ideals.
So for most of “The Prosecutor,” Fok searches for evidence, argues with colleagues, and interviews anyone who might exonerate the small-time drug-smuggler Ma Ka-kit (Fung Ho Yeung), who takes a plea bargain and is sentenced to 27 years in jail. That’s not only a miscarriage of justice, but also a potentially lethal blow for Ka-kit’s grandpa (Lau Kong), his only loving family member. Ka-kit’s case is still rushed through the court system, not only because of an institutional need to make less work for itself, but also because some corrupt attorneys happen to be working for Ka-kit’s drug-dealing boss.
As he’s aged, Yen’s developed a more complete vision of his movie persona’s identity. His apparent conviction and extra comfort with genre movie tropes and cliches makes it a lot easier for action fans to believe that we’re not only watching a confident and capable star check off some more boxes in yet another competent but unmemorable programmer. Everybody in “The Prosecutor” helps to confirm the tough guy social critic role that Yen’s rarely taken on as head-on as he does here.
The bad guys talk like “Dick Tracy” villains, as in a random disagreement about who gets to shoot who, while the good guys mostly shake their heads at hot-head Fok as he tries to change the world. Ka-kit also has a disarmingly seedy backstory about his irresponsible parents (both addicts!), which repeats Yen’s running theory about how your environment shapes your character. Even Fok’s ex-partner Lee King-wai (Julian Cheung), gets to lead a couple of the movie’s characteristically solid action scenes, which were choreographed by Yen’s regular collaborator Kenji Tanigaki (“Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In”). It takes a village to make Donnie Yen’s point.
“The Prosecutor”’s heavy-handed nature as a combined action movie and legal thriller might test the patience of anyone who’s not up for a dramatized civics lesson. Yen acts on all of his crowdpleasing instincts, so the movie’s kitchen sink logic might also disorient some viewers. Thankfully, “The Prosecutor” succeeds in one essential way: each new scene adds something to the movie’s inflexible, but entertaining vision of an ailing society with one proven remedy—a little extra Donnie Yen Energy.
Yen has been perfecting his butt-kicking square routine for decades now; it shows throughout “The Prosecutor,” whether Fok’s dragging a fellow cop to safety during the opening fight’s adrenaline rush climax or saving a random heavy from being hit by an oncoming train later on. Yen’s also still obsessing over how Hong Kong’s criminal justice system bases so much of its decisions on, uh, evidence, just like he did in his uncredited 1994 directorial debut, “Asian Cop: High Voltage.” “Where’s your evidence?” he’s asked in that earlier movie, to which his renegade character says: “I just feel it. I’ve been a cop for 10 years, give me enough time and I’ll get the proof.” Now Yen’s a prosecutor and he’s still getting it since, in Fok’s words, “I just got old. I can’t charge ahead all the time.”
So he says. Yen continues charging ahead in “The Prosecutor,” which frequently goes hard enough to fly through its corniest lulls. The movie climaxes with a bloody subway fight that includes a couple of delightfully hokey one-liners and a lot of rousing action. Yen’s often pretty good at what he does, only now the middle-aged star also looks comfortable playing himself, too.
