Takeshi Kitano's "Brother" is better than I remember it being. I saw it way back when it came out, before I even knew who Kitano was. I also know that he was not happy with the end product of this film, which may be why he decided to never make another movie in America - and he hasn't.
Straight away you notice that the movie just feels more Western than his prior, arthouse-cum-crime flicks. The colour palette is different, the musical score is less obtrusive and monotone, and the direction is less idiosyncratic. It's sort of like a more typical American gangster flick, but not quite, maybe stuck in a no man's land between arthouse and Hollywood.
The movie is also quite a bit more violent than Kitano's other movies. It has a body-count of 78. Is that the highest of any of his films? The violence is also more graphic. We're used to the sudden flashes of violence in his movies that always take us by surprise, but here it ceases to be unexpected and settles into a rhythm. I don't recall any uniquely gruesome scenes in Kitano's other flicks, but here there's a graphic finger chopping, a seppuku including spilled intestines, the aftermath of a decapitation. And who could forget the chopsticks up the nose?
These things are all more typical of Hollywood flicks. So what about "Brother" is not atypical for a Japanese movie? Of course, there's the good old obscure narrative that's present in every Kitano movie. Western audiences are used to knowing (more-or-less) who's who, why they're doing what they're doing, what their aims are. Here, you largely can't really follow the plot. I understood the premise that Kitano is a yakuza who escapes the fallout of a Japanese gang war by heading to Los Angeles, where his half-brother lives as a small time crim. What I didn't get is that at first Kitano and his half-brother's gang are also at war with Hispanic thugs. But that seems to change to Japanese ones? The scenes involving the seppuku seemed to happen back in Japan, but I didn't know what they were really about. I thought they were explaining why Kitano's gang were at war with the Japanese (maybe the war followed them to America?) but get this: Wikipedia says Kitano was actually at war with the Mafia. I don't even remember any Mafiosi in this movie at all...
So yeah. In that regard, it's very typical of a Kitano movie, even if it does feel stylistically different. But you know what? The theme of friendship in Kitano's movies, of showing what gangsters do when apart from crime, is present here, and I think "Brother" does it the best he ever did it. That was quite a surprise for me, and it's largely down to Omar Epps' winning performance, and the fact that there seems to be genuine chemistry - though I hesitate to use that word in regards to a Takeshi Kitano flick - between he and Kitano. Their interplay is actually pretty funny, and their relationship fairly believable.
As a Westerner watching this, though, I return to the same tired point of contention I always have with Kitano's flicks, even though I love them (and him): I just wish they made a little more sense.
Straight away you notice that the movie just feels more Western than his prior, arthouse-cum-crime flicks. The colour palette is different, the musical score is less obtrusive and monotone, and the direction is less idiosyncratic. It's sort of like a more typical American gangster flick, but not quite, maybe stuck in a no man's land between arthouse and Hollywood.
The movie is also quite a bit more violent than Kitano's other movies. It has a body-count of 78. Is that the highest of any of his films? The violence is also more graphic. We're used to the sudden flashes of violence in his movies that always take us by surprise, but here it ceases to be unexpected and settles into a rhythm. I don't recall any uniquely gruesome scenes in Kitano's other flicks, but here there's a graphic finger chopping, a seppuku including spilled intestines, the aftermath of a decapitation. And who could forget the chopsticks up the nose?
These things are all more typical of Hollywood flicks. So what about "Brother" is not atypical for a Japanese movie? Of course, there's the good old obscure narrative that's present in every Kitano movie. Western audiences are used to knowing (more-or-less) who's who, why they're doing what they're doing, what their aims are. Here, you largely can't really follow the plot. I understood the premise that Kitano is a yakuza who escapes the fallout of a Japanese gang war by heading to Los Angeles, where his half-brother lives as a small time crim. What I didn't get is that at first Kitano and his half-brother's gang are also at war with Hispanic thugs. But that seems to change to Japanese ones? The scenes involving the seppuku seemed to happen back in Japan, but I didn't know what they were really about. I thought they were explaining why Kitano's gang were at war with the Japanese (maybe the war followed them to America?) but get this: Wikipedia says Kitano was actually at war with the Mafia. I don't even remember any Mafiosi in this movie at all...
So yeah. In that regard, it's very typical of a Kitano movie, even if it does feel stylistically different. But you know what? The theme of friendship in Kitano's movies, of showing what gangsters do when apart from crime, is present here, and I think "Brother" does it the best he ever did it. That was quite a surprise for me, and it's largely down to Omar Epps' winning performance, and the fact that there seems to be genuine chemistry - though I hesitate to use that word in regards to a Takeshi Kitano flick - between he and Kitano. Their interplay is actually pretty funny, and their relationship fairly believable.
As a Westerner watching this, though, I return to the same tired point of contention I always have with Kitano's flicks, even though I love them (and him): I just wish they made a little more sense.