The Protégé

Anna was taken in as a child in Vietnam by Moody, a veteran contract killer who raised her and trained her in his trade instead of killing her. Years later the two work together on assignments around the world, while Anna keeps a quiet life in London running a shop that sells collectible books. When Moody is gunned down by hired men, Anna survives an attack on herself and sets out to find whoever ordered the killing and take revenge for the man who was a father to her. Her search brings her into conflict and then into an uneasy partnership with Michael Rembrandt, a rival assassin she has crossed paths with before.

Martin Campbell directed the film, the fourteenth of the eighteen features he has made in chronological order, following The Foreigner and preceding Memory, from a screenplay by Richard Wenk. Maggie Q plays Anna, Samuel L. Jackson plays Moody, and Michael Keaton plays Rembrandt, with David Rintoul, Patrick Malahide and Ray Fearon in supporting roles. It was produced by Arthur M. Sarkissian, Moshe Diamant and Christopher Milburn, and shot mainly in Bulgaria and Romania.

The film opened in August 2021 and took in roughly 9 million dollars worldwide, a modest return for an action thriller with three well-known leads. On IMDb it holds 6.1 out of 10 from about 42,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.6 from a much smaller body of around 1,200 votes, suggesting a slightly warmer response from that audience. Critics were less impressed, giving it 5.9 out of 10 across 110 reviews.