At The Movies: The Return recasts Homer’s Odyssey, The Prosecutor is energetic but melodramatic

The Return (M18)

116 minutes, opens on Dec 19
★★★★☆

The story: Ralph Fiennes – who better? – portrays Greek king Odysseus of Ithaca. He washes up on the shores of his island after 20 years away in the Trojan War, unrecognisable to even his queen Penelope (Juliette Binoche).

Gods and monsters, begone. Shot on craggy location, The Return recasts Homer’s Odyssey as a tragedy of stripped-down solemnity and slow-boiling power.

Italian director Uberto Pasolini condenses just the last few days in the ancient Greek epic poem. And Fiennes, a classically trained performer, is in his element, sinewy and sorrowful as the mighty ruler who is now a battered soldier, surveying a kingdom that has in his absence become a lawless land.

Binoche is every bit his equal in their third pair-up, following Wuthering Heights (1992) and The English Patient (1996). Her countenance records the exhaustion of Penelope’s solitary wait for word of Odysseus’ fate.

How much longer can the presumed widow hold off the mob of louts imprisoning her in her palace, hounding her to marry one of them? They are vying for the throne, which means killing her son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer).

In an archery contest-turned-massacre, Odysseus will shed his guise of a beggar to slaughter the suitors and reclaim all that is rightfully his.

It is a breathtakingly thrilling coda, but it is without catharsis or honour nor any joyous reunion. Odysseus is a survivor haunted by the shame and guilt of losing his entire army: his explosive rage is as much self-loathing at returning to bloodshed.

Veterans today will know his condition to be post-traumatic stress disorder, and Penelope’s question, “Why do men go to war?”, continues to be asked in these violent times.

Hot take: Two peerless leads bring anguish and contemporary resonance to an ancient text about the senselessness of war.

The Prosecutor (NC16)

117 minutes, opens on Dec 21
★★★☆☆

The story: Donnie Yen directs the Hong Kong legal thriller and appoints himself the upstanding prosecutor who risks his life and career to right a case of miscarried justice.

A naive lad (Mason Fung) framed for drug trafficking pleads guilty under undue influence from his defence team in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Yen’s Fok Chi Ho is the title hero of The Prosecutor, a former police officer newly transferred to the Department of Justice. Once a cop, always a cop: He conducts his own investigation into the shifty testimonies.

Upon uncovering a web of conspiracy, he makes like a modern-day Ip Man, fighting with fists of righteous fury to exonerate and avenge the poor exploited defendant.

The culprits are an underworld syndicate operating with the connivance of a corrupt legal executive (Julian Cheung), and Fok’s rooftop brawl against their gang of dozens and a knock-down-drag-out in a subway car are the showpieces.

The explosive action stylishly co-choreographed by Yen is as good as the movie gets. Based, presumably very loosely, on “true events”, the crime drama is consistently pacey but also dense yet simplistic, what with Fok all iron-jawed moral posturing amid the multiple homicides and heated courtroom theatrics.

His commitment to finding the truth inspires everyone around him, including Kent Cheng as the lead prosecutor and disapproving department head Francis Ng.

The great Michael Hui (Where The Wind Blows, 2023; The Last Dance, 2024) continues his resurgence at age 82 in the role of the judge, who should know the histrionics, not to say the extrajudicial violence, are inadmissible.

Hot take: A mixed verdict for this energetic but melodramatic blockbuster.