'The Prosecutor' Review: When Firing on all Cylinders Action-wise it’s an Absolute Blast

Jack Ransom
Jun 17
2 min read

Updated: Jun 20

By Jack Ransom - June 17, 2025

Film

Donnie Yen’s latest Hong Kong action… courtroom drama?

The Prosecutor only appeared on my radar after YouTube’s biggest film critic: Chris Stuckmann, reviewed it a few months back. Donnie Yen has kicked monumental amounts of ass in the blockbusters that he has appeared in (The Return of Xander Cage, Rogue One and most recently John Wick: Chapter 4), but criminally, I’ve yet to explore his Hong Kong filmography — titles like Ip Man, SPL: Kill Zone, Iron Monkey, Dragon, and Hero are still on my watchlist.

What is 'The Prosecutor' about?

The Prosecutor sees a poor young man (Ho Yeung Fung) get wrongly charged with drug trafficking after being deceived. An ex-detective-turned public prosecutor (Yen) investigates the case, uncovers a corrupt lawyer team's scheme, and restores justice despite obstruction from evil forces.

The Prosecutor wasn’t quite what I expected and unfortunately (despite being familiar to other superior films in the courtroom/police procedural sub-genre) it falls into convolution at points and stretches of dare I say dull, melodrama and only really sparks due to Yen’s commitment to drama (he really gives his all here) and the hammy antagonists. It’s not bad at all, perfectly serviceable material, but far from compelling. Clocking in at nearly 2 hours it does overstay its welcome somewhat, and throughout my mind I kept thinking - “There’s a killer 90-100 minuter within this.”

I should clarify — it's a killer full on action flick, and my God, the handful of set pieces are awesome, creative, and equally comic-book stylised. The opening set piece is a cross over of Call of Duty, Hardcore Henry and The Raid (with kicks and punches that land like explosions), this is followed by a barmy hockey stick beat down, a bar roof glass smashing brawl and an utterly savage and intense claustrophobic train cart beat down. All great stuff and masterfully choreographed with intense, swinging and creative camerawork. Just needed more of it.

Performance-wise as mentioned Donnie Yen is very committed to the drama as well as the action and he gives a strong lead performance. The rest of the cast are fine, with the group of behind the scenes villains hamming it up (especially Ray Lui as a demented Cambodian drug lord) and Kong Lau (as the young defendant’s Uncle) and MC Cheung Tinfu as Fok’s (Yen) subordinate.

Is 'The Prosecutor' worth watching for the action alone?

When The Prosecutor is firing on all cylinders action-wise it’s an absolute blast. The choreography is intense, meticulous and lightning quick, with creative camerawork thrown in and at 61 years old Donnie Yen is incredibly impressive for his age. Unfortunately, when the action isn’t happening the slow pacing, generic genre traits and narrative convolution are front and centre.

'The Prosecutor' is available now on digital platforms

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