Some films just have a very distinctive sensibility and Brother is one of them. This movie is somewhat of a kind with The Last Seduction in that the lead character has no problem with hardass murder. Written, edited and directed by and starring Takeshi Kitano, Brother is the story of a Yakuza gang leader who is defeated in a gang war and forced to flee to America, where his younger brother already lives as a small time drug dealer. Kitano’s Aniki (Big Brother) takes over his brother’s gang and drives them to become a force in the LA underworld until they become too big and run into a force they can’t defeat by ruthless violence, the Mafia.
Perhaps the culture gap between me and Japan is just too wide, or that this is Kitano’s first attempt at a film largely in English, but overall the movie didn’t work for me. Plot gaps and inexplicable to me behavior occur throughout. The acting was good, especially Omar Epps as the gang member Big Brother bonds with, Susumu Terajima as Kitano’s faithful follower, and Masaya Kato as the rival LA Japanese ganglord Kitano teams up with. This is the kind of movie where characters commit hara-kiri onscreen over public insults and others just shoot their guns without warning and massacre the opposition. Your mileage may vary.
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