Search - Brother on DVD

MPAA Rating: R Content Advisory: Violence, Brief Nudity, Profanity Movie Release: 2000 DVD Release: 01/02/2002 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English, Japanese Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 53 mins Studio: Columbia TriStar Total Copies: 1 Genres: Crime, Crime Thriller, Urban Drama

Internationally acclaimed director and Japanese media phenomenon Takeshi Kitano follows up his well-regarded Kikujiro with this straight-ahead gangster saga with a cross-cultural twist. The film focuses on Yamamoto (Kitano), a yakuza forced out of the country when a gang war all but wipes out his clan. Armed with a fake credit card, a forged passport, and a bag of money, he journeys to the strange and foreign land of Los Angeles to join his half-brother Ken (Claude Maki), who works as a low-rent street tough alongside fast-talking hustler Denny (Omar Epps). With brutal efficiency, the poker-faced Yamamoto starts staking out turf and organizing Ken's mob into one of the most powerful criminal syndicates in the city. As his gang grows in number and power, he is joined by Kato (Kitano regular Susumu Terajima), his former lieutenant from Japan, who entreats Little Tokyo's pathological crime boss Shirase (Masaya Kato) to join the group. Yamamoto seems unstoppable until his gang runs afoul of the Mafia. Soon, all that he built quickly and bloodily starts to unravel as every member in his gang is marked for death. This film was screened at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Beat Takeshi Kitano - Yamamoto
Claude Maki - Ken
Omar Epps - Denny
Masaya Kato - Shirase
Ren Ohsugi - Harada
Tatyana Ali
Joy Nakagawa

Some fans felt that actor/writer/editor/director Takeshi Kitano's foray to win over the American audience, Brother, lacked the all-around Renaissance Man's stylish explorations of violence, his keen satirical edge, and overall laconic cinematic mood that made his earlier films (Hana-bi and Sonatine to name the most popular) so breathtaking and memorable. Other fans felt that Brother's screenplay was just too clichéd, unfocused, and perhaps a little too Westernized for their tastes. Regardless of the die-hard fans' grumbling, Brother still contains enough of Kitano's trademark cool factor and is a film that should appeal to action fans who usually stray no farther than the latest Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme flick. Columbia/TriStar Home Entertainment's DVD is presented in its proper 1.85 aspect ratio (enhanced for widescreen televisions). The picture is excellent and very sharp, although there are a couple of scenes about a quarter of the way into the film that contain some slight compression problems. Outside of that, the picture is stable and excellent. The disc also contains a 5.1 Dolby Digital Japanese/English language soundtrack, as well as a very good and robust two-channel option. The disc has been equipped with English, Spanish, and French subtitles. Note that the disc defaults to English subtitles when playing, even though the film contains a duel Japanese/English soundtrack. So if you don't want to watch the film's English dialogue subtitled, make sure to switch them off before beginning. The disc unfortunately does not contain the original theatrical trailer, though three other Columbia/TriStar DVD release trailers have been supplied. ~ Derek Hill, All Movie Guide