One of Apprentice’s strongest selling points is how, in a very compact yet pleasingly dense way, it takes viewers into both the world of the executioners and the executed criminals’ family members who remain behind, two often almost ignored categories in films touching on capital punishment.
Tightly focused and ambitious in its multiple themes, the tale touches on how the death penalty radiates out to affect the living.
88
Slant MagazineChuck Bowen
Slant MagazineChuck Bowen
Writer-director Boo Junfeng casually reinvigorates the prison drama, boiling its elements down to their primal essence.
80
Village VoiceNick Schager
Village VoiceNick Schager
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.
The movie feels a little too sparse and literal in places.
42
The Film StageEthan Vestby
The Film StageEthan Vestby
While not without the occasional jolt of a sudden execution, the film feels so wholly tell and not show. Its left-wing politics about toxic masculinity bleeding into the justice system are so much a given that it’s just a dead-weight experience to watch.