Apprentice (Tu xing) | Film review - A hangman's protégé learns the ropes

(Image credit: MEG WHITE)

A good executioner never asks questions.

Why in Apprentice (Tu xing) does 28-year-old former delinquent and solider Aiman (Fir Rhaman) wish to become a prison officer? To help inmates with their rehabilitation, he tells his superiors and himself. However, more complex motives emerge, along with details of Aiman’s tragic family history, when the prison’s veteran hangman (Wan Hanafi Su) takes him on as his apprentice and literally shows him the ropes of his profession.

Set in Singapore, director Boo Junfeng's suitably claustrophobic psychological drama lays bare the workings of capital punishment in meticulous detail, while simultaneously revealing the emotional damage each execution leaves in its wake.

Certificate 15. Runtime 92 mins. Director Boo Junfeng

Apprentice debuts on Sky Cinema Premiere on Wednesday 30 August. Available on DVD from Arrow Films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxY3zZCqeTw

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.