Brother: Office Kitano/ Sony Pictures Classics
Rating: USA: R

Japanese cinema icon Beat Takeshi Kitano wrote, directed, edited, and starred in his latest film, Brother. The film, which tells the tale of a displaced yakuza lieutenant who finds himself in America, is the director’s first film to be made primarily in United States. And while it’s filled with plenty of Kitano’s standard stylistic and thematic flourishes, this longtime Beat Takeshi fan can’t help but think of it as an at least partially compromised production.

Kitano plays Yamamoto (named after the Admiral who led the attack at Pearl Harbor). Yamamoto is yet another stoic badass in the Kitano film tradition, a man of few words who doesn’t take any crap from anyone.

Yamamoto is forced out of Japan after his yakuza family is absorbed by a larger group of rivals. His friend, played by Kitano film regular Ren Osugi, arranges for Yamamoto to leave the country instead of having him killed as his big brothers in the yakuza wish. This sets up a short ‘fish out of water’ sequence when Yamamoto arrives in Los Angeles in search of his brother Ken (Claude Maki). From an opening shot filmed at a canted angle through to Yamamoto’s penchant for over-tipping, it becomes readily apparent that the gangster isn’t familiar with American traditions and lifestyle.

When he finds Ken, he discovers something he can understand—the American criminal subculture. Ken is running with several low-level African-American drug dealers, including Denny (Omar Epps), who’s already had a run-in with Yamamoto (and had a broken bottle shoved in his face for his troubles). In no time at all, Yamamoto has brought his yakuza traditions to the American drug trade, taking over an ever-expanding piece of turf by killing anyone who gets in his way. While doing this, he becomes Aniki (which translates to brother) to Denny, taking the young youth in and teaching him the ways of the yakuza subculture.

With his empire growing, Yamamoto calls in his right hand man from Japan (Kato, played by the always entertaining Susumu Terrajima) and eventually joins forces with the local Japanese crime lord in order to take on the mafia. This event sets off a major turf war that may cost Yamamoto everything he’s worked so hard to obtain.

As a whole, Brother is a largely uneven affair. While there are numerous moments that showcase everything that’s so enchanting about Kitano’s unique brand of cinema, these moments are countered time and time again by events or situations that seem distinctly American—and at complete odds with Kitano’s Japanese sensibilities. While the Japanese actors (Beat Takeshi, Ren Osugi, and Susumu Terrajima in particular) all shine in their roles, the American actors do not. Omar Epps gives it a go, but he’s clearly from a different school of acting than these Japanese legends. While Kitano is content to let a scene play out with little to no dialogue (allowing his almost inscrutable face to carry the bulk of the acting), Epps and his compatriots feel a need to continually talk. Kitano’s scripts, which are reportedly always light on dialogue, generally don’t allow for long talking head scenes—which further exacerbates the problem by forcing Epps to improvise a lot of his dialogue.

This improvised dialogue can be painfully bad (particularly the scene at the climax, which Epps freely admits he ad-libbed) and really detracts from the film as a whole. It’s just one way in which Kitano’s vision has been compromised for American consumption. As a long time Takeshi Kitano fan, I can’t help but feel as though this is Kitano-lite.

The problems aren’t just in the American actors, though. The script itself seems light and relatively inconsequential at many points. Kitano has said that he intended to portray the American and Mexican gangsters as caricatures (as sort of a cinematic payback for years of cardboard Japanese characters in American films), but will most audiences get the joke? And while the film revolves around the themes of brotherhood (both real life blood relations, the bonds between yakuza, and the code of honor amongst criminals), most of it’s presented in a painfully obvious and simplified fashion—a style of presentation that bears little resemblance to the deft touch applied in earlier Takeshi Kitano fare like Sonatine and Fireworks.

All of Kitano’s films have a certain sense of nihilism about them (particularly the ones he stars in—Kitano’s characters often find themselves in situations where death is the only way out. Again, though, that’s another distinctly Japanese thing—ritual suicide is an honorable tradition in Japan), but Brother marks the first time where the nihilism of the film actually struck me during the viewing. This is a dark and heavy film, and Kitano’s most overtly violent to date. The violence is never glamorized, and to Beat’s credit, the audience never becomes desensitized to it, but it pervades every frame of the film and can make for a relatively uncomfortable viewing experience for those unfamiliar with his work.

While it must seem as though I didn’t enjoy Brother, that’s not entirely true. Kitano, Susumu Terrajima, and Ren Osugi are all brilliant. And while the script is often violent, it’s also quite funny—and stands as one of the few films to showcase Takeshi’s formidable comedic sensibilities (the only other film that really plays up the comedy alongside the violence is Sonatine). There are moments here—Yamamoto and Denny gambling, a football game on the beach (with the beach being one of the film elements that appears to be ever-present in the man’s work)—that are light and fun, yet they’re ultimately bittersweet because they’re incapable of breaking through the somber mood of the film as a whole. The movie does make up for many of its missteps in Kitano’s final scene, which is something so purely Beat Takeshi that you can’t help but dig it. If nothing else, Takeshi Kitano certainly has a flair for mythic icon-making and this scene is a shining example of that.

Regular composer Joe Hisaishi provides another classic score, this one a little lighter and jazzier than the neo-classical compositions of films of like Fireworks. As usual, its minimalism complements Kitano’s, as one piece of music can be used in several different scenes and evoke different moods and emotions each time out.

Ultimately, Brother is the rare film where the sum of the parts is somehow greater than the whole. While Omar Epps bumbles his way through much of the film (but does at least try) and the script itself seems almost like an afterthought, Kitano still manages to salvage the film primarily through his own striking performance and that of his compatriots Ren Osugi and Susumu Terrajima. These elements are so powerful that I’m compelled to give Brother 4 stars in spite of the flaws.

It will always be my belief that Kitano’s vision (no matter how pure it may have been) was compromised in this film—no doubt in an attempt to make the film more palatable to American audiences. I’m disheartened by this, only because I don’t want to see Beat Takeshi become the next John Woo. Woo has been castrated by the Hollywood system and now makes films that are bland facsimiles of his best Hong Kong work. Clueless American critics will no doubt try to champion Kitano as the next Woo, despite the fact that the two filmmakers couldn’t be more different. They’re both Asian, they both make movies with a fair amount of violence in them, therefore they must be similar. Of course, if there’s anything to take solace in, it’s that Brother, while certainly American-ized, still holds much closer to Kitano’s cinematic vision than the first American films of Woo (Hard Target), Tsui Hark (Double Team), or Ringo Lam (Maximum Risk). Brother is certainly worth seeing, but if you’re new to Takeshi’s oeuvre, then Fireworks or Sonatine would be a better starting point.


Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening