The Prosecutor (2025) – Review

Quick thoughts – Grade – B+ – Directed by and starring Donnie Yen, The Prosecutor is guilty of being a fun action film. If you’re looking for a film that combines courtroom drama and Donnie Yen using a hockey stick to beat up drug dealers, it doesn’t get any better than this. 

When I saw the poster for The Prosecutor I knew I was going to love his latest Well-Go USA film. It features a bloody-fisted and legal wig wearing Yen who holds the scales of justice in his hands. It tells you everything you need to know about the film. 

1. Yen’s fists will crunch against skulls
2. He’s a lawyer who takes justice seriously
3. He might hit a person with the scales of justice – which would be awesome. 
4. He needs to team up with Daredevil so they can fight villains at night and work legal cases during the day.

The Prosecutor opens up with a raid on a gangster compound that is led by police detective Fok Zi Hou (Donnie Yen) and his team of police officers. The raid goes sideways and it forces the detective to unleash justice on an unlucky group of well-armed henchmen who never anticipated that they’d come across Donnie Yen. After the raid, several of the criminals are able to walk away without being charged because of a lack of evidence. This forces Fok Zi Hou to quit the police force and dedicate his efforts to becoming a public prosecutor for the Department of Justice. His rationale is that he led his team when he was a detective, and now he wants to be the last line of defense against criminals as they navigate a legal system that is overrun with cases and shady defense lawyers. Fok’s first case is to prosecute an alleged drug smuggler named Ma Ka-kit (Mason Fung)  who after giving his address to a friend, received a parcel stuffed with a kilogram of cocaine. After receiving some terrible advice from his pro-bono defense attorney (Shirley Chan) and her shady husband Au Pak-man (Julian Cheung), the innocent Ma receives 27 years in jail, which means he’ll be separated from his elderly grandfather, Uncle Ma (Lau Kong). This forces Fok into action as he dedicates himself to absolving Ma of his crimes by punching many people until he gets to the guilty drug dealers

The best thing about the court case is watching prosecutor Fok defend the person he is trying to prosecute – which leads to some comical moments from the presiding judge and his bosses who don’t know what to do with their new prosecutor. After watching the first big courtroom scene my wife looked at me and said “I’ve never seen that before,” and she’s right. It’s a unique angle to take, and Yen’s cheeky charisma and do-gooder attitude make all the trial scenes feel alive and fun. Fok knows that Ma is innocent, but all the evidence points towards a guilty verdict. Also, since the Department of Justice is so slammed with cases, it’s impossible to dedicate manpower to proving that the poor kid gets a fair verdict. This forces Fok to do his own investigation with the aid of his detective friend Lee King-wai (MC Cheung Tin-fu), who can hold his own in a fight (the box truck brawl with some drug dealers is awesome) and be trusted to do what’s right. 

Fok’s investigation puts him in the crosshairs of a group of deadly drug dealers who justifiably don’t want their smuggling operation to be discovered. To combat Fok, Au Pak-man and his bosses send dozens of henchmen after Fok and he battles them in alleys, streets, skyscraper balconies, car parks, trains, and apartments. The fight choreography by Takahito Ôuchi, Kang Yu, Hua Yan, and Kenji Tanigaki (all Yen regulars) is constantly inventive and helped by the cinematography of Man Nok Wong, who uses aerial drones, cranes, and video game-esque cinematography to give the fight scenes various looks and styles. The production design is legit as well, and after doing some research I learned that the MTR train interior built for the climactic fight was constructed with steel to make sure  the sets didn’t distract during the epic final fight (nobody likes cheap sets that are built out of balsa wood). For the review, I watched the final fight again and the sturdiness of the train interior definitely gives the brawl a bruising feel as Fok battles a deadly assassin named Kam Hung (Yu Kang) throughout several train cars. 

Overall, The Prosecutor is a solid package that allows Donnie Yen to beat people up and charm people with his acting skills. I’d love to see more Prosecutor movies and based on its success in China and the worldwide critical praise we might get more of them.