SINGAPORE - Local film-maker Boo Junfeng's psychological drama Apprentice has gotten good reviews ahead of its release in the United States on March 3.

The movie had its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival last May in the Un Certain Regard section and is about a young prison officer Aiman (Fir Rahman) who gets taken under the wing of prison executioner Rahim (Wan Hanafi Su).

Apprentice is a New York Times' critics' pick and the newspaper said: "At first Apprentice seems to be a basic revenge film in which Aiman stalks the man who killed his father. But it becomes psychologically more complex as it reveals Rahim's buried rage and guilt over his occupation and Aiman's ambivalence when offered the chance to step into his new boss's shoes."

The Village Voice noted: "Drenched in darkness and routinely visualizing its characters behind bars and alone in the frame, Apprentice teases a climax of bloody revenge, only to take a far more sombre, complex turn. In a finale rife with twisted feelings of resentment, fury, and self-loathing, the film transforms into a grave meditation on the corrosive shadow cast by the decisions, and crimes, of yesterday."