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| Genre: | Thriller |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Rating: | R |
| Length: | 1 Hour 53 Minutes |
| Cast: | Beat Takeshi Kitano, Beat Takeshi Kitano, Claude Maki, Omar Epps |
Blithely ultraviolent and brutally funny, Brother may be as close to a by-the-numbers genre film as celebrated Japanese director Takeshi Kitano is ever likely to come. This crime saga is littered with ritualistically severed fingers and other ingredients drawn directly from Japanese cinema's long tradition of yakuza (gangster) potboilers. Kitano stars as gangland under-boss Yamamoto who, exiled from Japan after a series of ill-fated power plays, heads to Los Angeles in search of his younger brother, Ken (Claude Maki). Ken is already running with a bottom-rung crew of his own, which includes among its members an unusually lucky street hustler named Denny (Omar Epps). The film's title, clearly, is a kind of triple entendre about siblings, race relations, and the fraternity of the criminal underclass. The filial bond that develops between Epps and Kitano amid the backdrop of clan warfare among Asians, African-Americans, and Latinos -- a milieu drenched in kamikaze nihilism -- becomes the heart of the film. A return to form that fans of the director's classics (including Sonatine and Fireworks) will be sure to embrace, Brother is also the perfect introduction to Kitano's inimitable brand of ruthless comedy and slapstick mayhem. Chas Turner
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