Apprentice

The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij

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.

Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen

Writer-director Boo Junfeng casually reinvigorates the prison drama, boiling its elements down to their primal essence.

The Film Stage by Ethan 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.

Screen International by Lisa Nesselson

Tightly focused and ambitious in its multiple themes, the tale touches on how the death penalty radiates out to affect the living.

Village Voice by Nick 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.

Variety by Peter Debruge

The movie feels a little too sparse and literal in places.

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

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.