I am a huge fan of the brilliant cinematic genius Takeshi Kitano, his films "Hana-Bi" (1997) and "Violent Cop" (1991) are two of my all-time favorites and I also found several other Kitano films such as "Zatoichi" (2003) excellent. "Brother" of 2001 is in my opinion Kitano's weakest film up to date, which does not mean that it's bad. It is just not quite as brilliant as Kitano's other work. Kitano is once again director and leading actor, and he once again delivers a great performance in the lead.

Yakuza Aniki Yamamoto (Kitano) flees to America after his death is ordered by a Yakuza clan. Yamamoto goes to LA where his younger brother Ken is supposed to study. Instead of studying, however, Ken deals drugs with some American friends. And it doesn't take Yamamoto long to plan some drastic improvements for his little brother's gang...

Takeshi Kitano's performance is once again superb, this guy certainly is one of the greatest cinematic multi-talents who ever lived. I found the Japanese characters great in general, and if it was only for them, "Brother" would have probably almost reached Kitano's masterpieces in brilliance. I personally didn't like the American characters though. Omar Epps certainly is a good actor, but his character of Denny is just not very deep, simply the very stereotypical African American street gangster seen in two out of three cheesy Hollywood blockbusters. And that counts for the other American characters too. It wasn't actually that bad with Omare Epps, simply because he is a very good actor. Besides the flatness of the American characters, I found the movie very good. It is once again beautifully and imaginatively filmed in typical Kitano style, and it has the typical Kitano humor that I love. The movie is also very violent, so it's probably not for people who are easily offended by brutality in films. What I also really like about "Brother" is the fact that at least half of the movie is in Japanese. The Japanese characters also talk Japanese when they are in the US.

"Brother" is arguably Kitano's weakest movie, and definitely my least favorite of his movies, but that doesn't mean it's bad. We're talking about a great cinematic genius here, and "Brother" certainly is a good, suspenseful, entertaining, stylish and interesting film. In case you don't know Kitano yet, i recommend to watch "Hana-bi" or "Violent Cop" before watching this, but in case you're already familiar with Kitano "Brother" is certainly worth watching. My fellow Kitano fans should not miss this. Recommended 7/10

Wow. According to IMDb, the body count in this film is a whopping 78! Had I known this ahead of time, I probably wouldn't have watched this film. I am usually turned off by overly violent films, as too often there isn't much of a story and it's just an excuse for gross-out special effects that appeal to our lowest instincts. So did the film win me over or was it just another blood-fest? Well, it did impress me--that's for sure.

Takeshi Kitano (also known as Beat Takeshi) wrote, directed and starred in this film. It begins in Japan and two rival yakuza clans are at war with each other. Eventually, to end the conflict, the surviving members of one clan officially join the other--all but one hard guy (Kitano). Instead of killing him, however, they send him overseas--to an exile, of sorts.

Kitano arrives in America to stay with his younger half-brother. However, the younger guy is a punk drug dealer hanging with low-lifes--not a yakuza big-wig like Kitano. One of the younger half-brother's friends (Omar Epps) meets Kitano--and the meeting is very memorable! In fact, EVERYTHING about his dealings with Kitano turn out to be memorable. Kitano soon decides to take out the half-brother's enemies and starts a gang war with the Mexican gangs thanks to his crazy macho ways--and Kitano seems not the least bit concerned during all this as his face is quite deadpan and cold throughout. After all, in his mind, if people hurt you, just kill them...as well as their friends. He is truly a scary guy here! And, a scary get bent on taking over everything. At least it's nice to see a man with ambition! Following Takeshi's example, his small band of punks quickly grows. And, so does their ambition and love of violence. Among all this is a weird suicide scene (in fact, there was another really weird one later). I guess it makes sense, in a way...but man is it weird. And so the body count rises...very quickly. And the younger half-brother soon sees himself as a really, really bad guy--and it's easy to see that he and his friends are setting themselves up to fall.

After seeing this film, I noticed it bore some resemblance to an earlier Kitano film--"Sonatine". Both have very similar themes, a similar deadpan performance by Kitano and feature some oddly surreal scenes of mobsters at work and play. And, both have ENORMOUS body counts. While good films and I certainly could respect how they were crafted, they also were both pretty unpleasant viewing and I can't imagine watching more of these! Well made but yuck! By the way, it was nice to see James Shigeta in this film. He was once a very popular actor but hasn't been as active in recent years. Also, during the course of all the killing, did you notice that NEVER did any police respond to any of the gunfire?! Maybe it's just too common an occurrence in LA...or the film just forgot about this.

Brother is another of Takeshi Kitano's 'Yakuza' thrillers, though this time the Yakuza are only a small part of the picture and only sometimes set in Japan. Akani (Kitano) is a hit-man who has bitten off more than he can chew- killed some of the wrong people, if at the right place at the right moment- and is advised to leave the country. He joins his brother in LA and soon he and a rag-tag group of hoodlums- mostly by way of the chilling, quiet audacity and cunning shooting skills of Anaki- rise the ranks as big-time crime lords in LA... that is, until, they mess with the Italians.

This part of the story, admittedly, is rather typical and maybe just something Kitano felt he had to work with as one of those staples of the genre: rise and undoubted fall of a skilled but flawed criminal mastermind/killer. But Brother is most impressive not for its plot, which can occasionally appear ragged and disconnected (perhaps by design as Kitano is the editor), but for presentation. Kitano himself as a presence/star/actor is so cool that had he been around during Melville's time he could wipe the floor with Alan Delon and even Belmondo in the bad-ass department. This is just one component to Brother's success though since Kitano could put himself in just about anything and make that part of it look cool. Coolness isn't enough in Brother, and rightfully so; this isn't a fun movie entirely to watch, even if one might feel guilty in enjoying some of the more crazy shoot-outs and bouts of violence.

The body count here, according to the trivia, is 78. This is a high number, but despite seeing it in a cut R-rated version it doesn't feel very compromised (mayhap it is and I'm being naive, but it's a first-time viewing all the same). It's a real sight to see to witness how Kitano makes these encounters of violence surprising; the first big one, with the first time Omar Epps and Kitano run into each other on the street (glass breaks, scoff and demand, glass cut to the face) the way its edited is fantastic in timing and perception- not minimalist, but something a few beats different then what one would normally see. We also see Kitano's knack at unusual but inventive framing devices, like a dark, massive shoot-out under a bridge at night with warring gangs, and only the lights from the guns blazing off of the bodies. Other moments like these are a sight of bodies laid out in the Japanese word of "Death", and when one gangster is already dead when a group in a car pull up to a house: Kitano focuses on that. The final shoot-out, as well, is unexpected.

It's not a great movie, and suffers from the flaws mentioned at the top. Yet I'd recommend Brother to any genre fan, to those chest-deep in Yakuza flicks and one who's only aware of Kitano from Zatoichi. This is no Shoot Em Up, but a serious picture about the damning implications of a life devoted to self-destruction and annihilation for stupid, materialist and territorial goals. If it's not anything entirely new its film-making enriches what's conventional, and Kitano is always clever at bending the lines.