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I did wonder what Office Kitano was up to when they announced their intention to
make their first American film. Was Kitano not content with being on Japanese TV every night of the week,
a national superstar, celebrated comic and widely acclaimed actor and director? Was he oblivious to
the history of failed attempts by euro/art/world directors that have attempted this transmigration
(akin to building your dream house on a swamp). For example, John Woo hasn't made anything to rival
The Killer or Hard Boiled since coming to Hollywood. Hard Target? Face/Off? Not even close. In
addition Kitano's style is almost anti-Hollywood: laconic, sporadic, amateurish and even non-narrative
at times. His films, despite their universality, are as uncompromising as they are rooted in their
Japanese context.
As Brother's story of yakuza gangster leaving Japan for the US in search of his half brother
unfolds, the curse begins to manifest itself. What we get is diluted Kitano. The
symbolism, slapstick, and searching introspection that form the finer moments of his recent work
are substituted for a more US-friendly version. The oblique characterizations don't favour his
American counterparts with their speed-freak emotional dialogue that passes for acting in Hollywood
today - and a return to the trademark violence of earlier efforts come across a little stale and to
be honest, unsettling, in an American context. We are left wanting and confused between Kitano's
terseness and the American's obsequious need to advance plot through dialogue.
Brother marks a regression from the maturity of recent offerings Hana-Bi and Kikujiro. Instead
of furthering this style he favours a return to the abundant violence of Sonatine and Violent Cop
that one suspects attracted Hollywood in the first place.
Kitano the actor is the driving force of the film and when he drops out of sight in the middle
the whole thing begins to unravel embarrassingly. His friendship with Epps doesn't translate well and
later flashbacks to his associates in Japan seem pointless.
It is at this point however, that you begin to sense a change in direction. It's almost as if the
director senses his yakuza style isn't quite working and decides to alter its course. What
transpires is a cunning parody of the American cinematic tradition. Kitano embarks on a splendid
charicature of everything from Scarface to
Butch Cassidy to Star Wars and considering the US is already a charicature of itself he undertakes
the task perfectly with his outsiders eye. Concluding in western/road movie territory you begin to
suspect Kitano is having the last laugh after all...
Brother is not an extension of Kitano's career as such, more a reworking of earlier efforts for
the American audience. Most notable are the brief flashes of inspiration when Kitano
allows the story to flow at a natural pace, free from the strict constraints of the Hollywood
machine - these are where the film really shines - the beach scenes, the symbolic arrangements of bodies in the final
massacre, etc. However, these moments prove too little, too late. Let's hope his next film continues in the direction he was moving of late: a
more mature, deeper investigation of his art and self that is the genius we've come to expect from
Beat Takeshi Kitano.
RATING: (c)Limer 2001
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Brother (Cinema 2001)
