Donnie Yen directs, stars in HK legal thriller The Prosecutor
Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen at first turned down being involved in his latest film The Prosecutor, saying that procedural thrillers involving the police and court system had become too familiar.
Hong Kong actor-producer Raymond Wong, a producer on Yen’s Ip Man martial arts movie franchise (2008 to present), had presented him a screenplay about a miscarriage of justice based on a true story.
“He said, ‘This is a role I think is suitable for you.’ I told him I didn’t know the genre, and also it was a kind of law and order story that was always on television. It wasn’t my cup of tea,” says Yen, speaking to The Straits Times on a video call from Hong Kong, where he was promoting The Prosecutor.
Wong would not give up. After some months of back and forth, Yen changed his mind, but on one condition – he had to change the story into a style he was familiar with.
“I have to tell the story differently, so I spent a year and a half putting this movie together,” he says.
Eventually, the 61-year-old actor would wear the hats of star, director and producer on The Prosecutor, which opens in Singapore cinemas on Dec 21.
Changes he made included pulling together a cast of seasoned Hong Kong professionals he admires, including TVB veteran Lau Kong, who plays the grandfather of a young drug offender, and Michael Hui, who portrays a judge.
To make the movie feel less like a normal procedural drama, Yen reportedly turned combative dialogue into actual combat, as shown in a scene featuring an argument between the characters played by Yen and co-star Francis Ng.
“I try to make different films every single time. Whether I was able to achieve that successfully or not, history will tell. As a film-maker, I try to stay true to my beliefs. I should make the best film I can. After the movie opens, the audience will give me their judgment, so we’ll see,” he says.
In The Prosecutor, Yen plays Fok Chi Ho, a police special forces operator who leaves the force to become a prosecutor. He is given the case of Ma Ka Kit (Mason Fung), an impoverished young man accused of drug trafficking. Ma receives a heavy sentence after taking a plea deal under suspicious circumstances. Fok decides to follow his instincts, which tell him there is more to the case than Ma’s lawyers will admit. Upon investigating, he discovers a conspiracy that leads into Hong Kong’s criminal underworld and its corridors of power.
Yen came to this project after spending time in Hollywood, where he has appeared in movies such as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Disney’s historical fantasy Mulan (2020) and the martial arts thriller John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), in which he played the assassin Caine.
He will reprise the character of Caine in a John Wick spin-off movie that will begin production in 2025.
Working with Americans has not altered his storytelling style much, he says, though there are aspects of the way they conduct business that he admires.
“My experience working in Hollywood gave me another perspective in terms of the overall film-making – its marketing and management of the size of the production.”
In previous interviews, Yen spoke about the potential for made-in-China films to make a global impact. Growing the market outside of China remains a problem because of the immature financing structures that make investing in films less attractive compared with Western systems.
Still, he remains pleased with his work in Hollywood, especially now, when he has enough clout to ask for script revisions to make his characters less stereotypically Asian.
In Rogue One, for example, he changed his character of Chirrut Imwe from a typically stern and inscrutable martial arts master to one with a streak of mischief. In John Wick: Chapter 4, he asked that Caine’s wardrobe be switched from old-fashioned Chinese garb to something more modern and stylish.
“It’s my basic principle to hold a certain standard when I receive a role, whether it’s a Hollywood movie or not. Even though you’re playing a role, you’re being seen in the eyes of the public. What you convey through your work reflects how you feel. So I choose my roles and how I play those roles very cautiously.”
The Prosecutor opens in Singapore cinemas on Dec 21.
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