It took “months” to convince Donnie Yen to direct and star in The Prosecutor

A new Donnie Yen movie is always a must-see event for action fans. After wowing audiences in 2023 with his role as Caine in John Wick: Chapter 4 and his wuxia epic Sakra (which he directed and starred in), as well as his memorable semi-recent roles Villain one and the Ip Man series, the Hong Kong legend is back The prosecutoragain as star and director.

Yen will be the first to tell you that this film deviates from its usual subject matter: The prosecutor is primarily a courtroom drama, although the star and director have obviously added his trademark eye for action and skill at screen combat to the mix. Loosely based on a true story, the film follows a former police officer who trades in his badge to start a new career as a prosecutor. But the justice-driven lawyer soon finds himself at odds with his new boss and colleagues when he believes the person they’re prosecuting is innocent.

While it may not fully resolve the thorny conflicts created by its intriguing premise, The prosecutor is nevertheless a highly competent and engaging genre exercise, combining grounded, high-octane action sequences with the standard court drama genre. Polygon spoke with Yen on Zoom about how the project came together, what convinced him to take it on, and how new technology opens up new possibilities for old-fashioned ways of filming action.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Polygon: What were you interested in? The prosecutor?

Donnie Yen: I wasn’t interested at all. In the beginning, when the company presented the film to me, I said, ‘I have no idea how to make this film. I make action films. That’s my world. Why do you want me to do this?” And they only thought two things. First of all, they really felt that how I live as a person – they know me, they’re my friends – would make me perfect for that role.

Secondly, these are companies I have worked with several times in the past, such as on the Ip Man series. And they said, “Oh, we were preparing for the other movies, IP man 5 as well as Flash point 2. We are going to produce these films, and the audience wants to see these films. But you’ve never made a movie like (The prosecutor). Let’s give it a try.”

So it took two months before I was convinced. I said, ‘I really need to come up with an angle to make this movie. We watch it a lot, these kinds of sophisticated scenes in the courtroom. I’m going to make a film that combines the two elements.” First of all, there is of course my core audience. They want to see Donnie Yen in action. How do you combine them?

Secondly, I don’t want to create a world where people get caught up in the realism of the thing itself, and then suddenly there are people flying around and kicking. I wanted to use the housing more as a driving force behind the movement. So when someone is in the action, the audience can feel the emotion behind it. What I’m ultimately saying is that the film is about getting the audience to synchronize their emotions with how I want them to react, so that they become excited and emotionally attached to the story, rather than the subject itself. We had to be diligent about putting the action scenes in – we couldn’t just throw in a bunch of action scenes. The audience has to believe that the characters need to get to those action moments, so they are very carefully planted.

Something that struck me about this film and Sakra is how to combine old-school martial arts film techniques with new technology: drones, POV action scenes and more. What is your philosophy on combining the two, and what excites you?

I just call it the technique of telling a story through stylized camerawork. In the old-fashioned martial arts movies, we didn’t have those kinds of choices. We had one camera, a still camera, and you just kept fighting. There were no computers at that time. I always cut my film with the old fashioned film cutters. And now, of course, we’re dealing with modern technologies: AI, phones and everything.

I don’t like being dependent on technology unless it’s really necessary. There was a scene in the middle, in a nightclub with drone footage, and it was all real, not even a piece of CGI to enhance. I prepared the directions, choreographed the movements. We spent a whole day shooting it and half the night with the stuntman. And then the drone cameraman has the recording tested in the second half of the night. And I got the chance. That’s what I wanted, back to basics. So what I’m trying to say is that when it comes to filmmaking, I still believe in good old-fashioned real emotion, whether it’s an (intellectual) expression of emotion or a physical expression of emotion. They have to be real to be compelling so that the audience can be involved in your stories.

You’re using the new technology that’s available to you, but you’re still focused on wanting it in the camera because you want it to feel real.

Absolute. You have to. Images come to me during the scripting process. I’m discussing a script with my writers or actors, and images are already forming in my head. It’s a bit like a musician. Maybe because I play the piano or something. Some kind of musical rhythm I have in my head brings out these images.

The prosecutor now playing in theaters.