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 turns in Rogue One and the Ip Man series, the Hong Kong legend is back with The Prosecutor, once again as both star and director. Yen will be the first to tell you that this movie is a departure from his usual subject matter — The Prosecutor is primarily a courtroom drama, although the star and director of course added his signature eye for action and skill at screen fighting to the mix. Loosely based on a true story, the movie follows a former police officer who trades in his badge to start a new career as a prosecutor. But the justice-driven lawyer quickly winds up at odds with his new boss and co-workers when he believes the person they are prosecuting is innocent. While it may not fully deliver on the thorny conflicts set up by its intriguing premise, The Prosecutor is nevertheless a highly competent and engaging genre exercise, mixing grounded, high-octane action sequences with the standard court-drama genre. Polygon spoke with Yen on Zoom about how the project came together, how he was convinced to take it on, and how new technology affords new opportunities for old-school ways of filming action. This interview has been edited for concision and clarity. Polygon: What interested you about The Prosecutor? Donnie Yen: I was not interested at all. In the beginning, when the company presented it to me, I said, “I have no idea how to do this movie. I do action movies. That’s my world. Why do you want me to do this?” And they just thought two things. One, they really felt how I live as a person — they know me, it’s my friends — would make me perfect for that role. Secondly, these are companies I’ve worked with several times in the past, like on the Ip Man series. And they said, “Oh, we were prepping for the other movies, Ip Man 5 as well as Flash Point 2. We’re going to produce these films, and the audience wants to see these films. But you’ve never done a film like [The Prosecutor]. Let’s give it a try.” [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Prosecutor-Still2-1340x754-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] So it took two months for me to be convinced. I said, “I really have to think of an angle to do this movie. We watch tons of them, these kinds of sophisticated courtroom scenes. I’m going to do a film combining the two elements.” First, of course, is my core audience. They want to see Donnie Yen action. How do you combine them? Two, I don’t want to create a world where people get caught in the realism of the case itself, then all of a sudden you have people flying around and kicking. I wanted to use the case as more of a driving force of the motion. So when a person’s in the action, the audience can feel the emotion behind it. Ultimately, what I want to say is, the film is about driving the audience to synchronize their emotion with how I want them to react, so they get excited and emotionally attached to the story, rather than the subject itself. We had to put the action scenes in diligently — we couldn’t just throw in a bunch of action scenes. The audience needs to believe the characters need to go to those action moments, so they were very carefully planted. Something that stuck out to me about this film and Sakra is how you combine old-school martial arts film techniques with new technology — drones, POV action sequences, and more. What is your philosophy on combining the two, and what excites you about it? I just call it the technique of telling a story through stylized camera work. In the old-school martial arts movies, we didn’t have those kinds of choices. We had one camera, a still camera, and you just go about doing your fighting. Back in those days, there were no computers. I used to cut my film with the old-school film slicers. And now, of course, we are dealing with modern technologies — AI, phones, and everything. [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/Prosecutor-Still1-1340x754-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] I do not like to depend on technology unless it’s really necessary. There was a scene in the middle, in a nightclub with drone shots, and it was all real, not even one bit of CGI to enhance. I prepped the directions, choreographed the movements. We spent a whole day shooting that and half of the night going over it with the stuntman. And then the second half of the night is having the drone cameraperson test the shot. And I got the shot. That’s what I wanted, to go back to basics. So what I’m trying to say is, when it comes to filmmaking, I still believe in old-school real emotion, whether it’s an [intellectual] expression of emotion or a physical expression of emotion. They have to be real to be convincing, so the audience can be engaged with your storytelling. You’re using the new technology that’s available to you, but you’re still focused on wanting it in-camera, because you want it to feel real. Absolutely. You have to. Shots come to me during the script process. I’ll be going over a script with my writers or actors, and shots are already being formed in my head. It’s kind of like a musician. Maybe because I play piano or something. Some sort of musical rhythm that I have in my head brings these images out. The Prosecutor is now playing in theaters.