Brother is elegant, despite a clever, B-movie type plot, about a brutal Yakuza henchman transplanted to the US, and unintentionally sets up his own Yakuza-like empire in the new terrain. Kitano effortlessly does it, as the quiet lead actor, and, quiet and calculating director. Tarantino, and Hollywood chum Rodriguez, can’t seem to be this good, most of their output seems like a put-on compared to what Kitano has made (Rodriguez’s Sin City looks interesting, though).
All the rants about the film’s ultra-violence pales in comparison to the casual body-mutilating fare so easily accessible now. Yakuza’s cutting fingers, shoving chopsticks up the nose, they’re all so typical nowadays. After all, this was done in the not-so-distant year 2000. The other characters seem to be always on the brink of just being novel cut-outs, complimentary, gun-toting movie players. Oh, did I like the ending? It was predictable, but I found it apt.