LeSamourai86 Exiled from Japan, Yamamoto, a member of the Yakuza, arrives in Los Angeles. Here, his brother is the leader of a small-time multi-racial gang, and Yamamoto encourages them to expand by taking over the local drug trade.Brother really struck a chord with me because of what it shows regarding race relations. It shows something I believe in very deeply and that is when forming relationships (be it love or friendship) with people, their character and principles should be the prime consideration and race should not factor into it.Why? One reason is that it makes more sense to affiliate with people based on character and principles rather than race, because character and principles can change but race cannot; if I refuse to be friends with a person of race X, then that person cannot ever be friends with me as long as he does not change his race. Additionally, if race is the prime consideration, then it is possible one may disregard or overlook positive qualities in a person to prevent the creation of a relationship with them, and even more dangerously, one may disregard negative character traits just so they can connect with someone.These are not conjectures, rather they are observations I have made in the almost thirty years I've been alive. Unfortunately, they're observations I have made much too often, starting from my formative years all the way to the somewhat cynical adult I am now. It really hurts me to see people from two countries detest each other over something that happened between their respective countries decades ago, even though these individuals had nothing personally to do with that event. Heck, I've met many of these people, whose default position is that they hate individuals from a certain country.Not often does a film come along that so eloquently speaks to me about issues that I care very much about. This is why I've somewhat unintentionally gone off on a tangent.The Yakuza members in this film are portrayed as ruthless individuals who carry out despicable acts and have no qualms about murdering innocent people to fulfil their needs and the needs of their (Yakuza) brothers, thus it is rather ironic that they do have some admirable qualities. One of those is that they consider the brotherhood between Yakuza members to be of more importance than familial relations (that is meant to be the ideal). Having seen this in the movie, I cannot help but think how much better it would be if we could apply a similar principle to our dealings with the people we meet every day (for good causes, of course, not criminal!).While many of the characters in this film are deeply flawed in many ways, such as the blind loyalty they show to their bosses, they are also shown to be very human. To pass the time, they play cards and basketball and various other games; they laugh and they make jokes; they give each other gifts; they have people they care about and they care about each other. Depictions of leisure time and activities to portray the humanity in characters we might traditionally hate is a great strength of Takeshi Kitano the director, and is present in his other films (Boiling Point and the masterpiece Sonatine come to mind). The resulting effect is that it is impossible to hate the characters, no matter how much you may want to.As in all Kitano films, there is a lot of humour, including some laugh out loud moments, and none of it feels out of place. As well as humour, many of Kitano's other trademarks are present, including off-screen violence (although there is much on screen violence as well, some of it eye-watering), lingering shots that continue after the scene has ended and ellipses, which is the technique of jumping from one scene to another and leaving what happened in between to the imagination.Regular Kitano collaborator, Joe Hisaishi, provides the score, and what a beautiful and pensive score it is. Someone who has not watched the film might feel the score would be out of place in a gangster film, however, it fits perfectly. As I write, the track "I love you… Aniki" is playing on my CD player, and thinking about the themes and characters in the film, I feel, at the risk of sounding unmanly, choked up.Takeshi Kitano brings Japanese style and sensibility to a gangster film set in America, and this was, based on an interview, his intention. This decision works very well and results in a poignant crime drama with likable and well-drawn characters. I did not appreciate Kitano's work five years back, however, he is now one of my favourite directors. I have not yet seen all his films but out of the ones I have, I highly recommend Kikujiro, Sonatine, Hana-Bi, Violent Cop, Dolls, Boiling Point and Zatoichi. I urge you to seek out and watch them, as well as Brother, of course.

Jai Verma I regret wasting my time watching this awful movie. I took it from the good ratings and the reviews comparing this film to Goodfellas and The Godfather which is absolute blasphemy! In fact this film is not worth watching at all. The plot, acting, direction, everything about this movie is garbage. The only thing I could say was watchable about this film is occasional gory action. Other than that this movie doesn't make any sense to me. Total waste of time.If you still for some reason are planning to watch it, please refer to the "hated it" section of the reviews to get the accurate insights as to why not to do it. Please save yourself some time and watch Tarantino's movies for "bloody action".

MartinHafer Wow. According to IMDb, the body count in this film is a whopping 78! Had I known this ahead of time, I probably wouldn't have watched this film. I am usually turned off by overly violent films, as too often there isn't much of a story and it's just an excuse for gross-out special effects that appeal to our lowest instincts. So did the film win me over or was it just another blood-fest? Well, it did impress me--that's for sure.Takeshi Kitano (also known as Beat Takeshi) wrote, directed and starred in this film. It begins in Japan and two rival yakuza clans are at war with each other. Eventually, to end the conflict, the surviving members of one clan officially join the other--all but one hard guy (Kitano). Instead of killing him, however, they send him overseas--to an exile, of sorts.Kitano arrives in America to stay with his younger half-brother. However, the younger guy is a punk drug dealer hanging with low-lifes--not a yakuza big-wig like Kitano. One of the younger half-brother's friends (Omar Epps) meets Kitano--and the meeting is very memorable! In fact, EVERYTHING about his dealings with Kitano turn out to be memorable. Kitano soon decides to take out the half-brother's enemies and starts a gang war with the Mexican gangs thanks to his crazy macho ways--and Kitano seems not the least bit concerned during all this as his face is quite deadpan and cold throughout. After all, in his mind, if people hurt you, just kill them...as well as their friends. He is truly a scary guy here! And, a scary get bent on taking over everything. At least it's nice to see a man with ambition! Following Takeshi's example, his small band of punks quickly grows. And, so does their ambition and love of violence. Among all this is a weird suicide scene (in fact, there was another really weird one later). I guess it makes sense, in a way...but man is it weird. And so the body count rises...very quickly. And the younger half-brother soon sees himself as a really, really bad guy--and it's easy to see that he and his friends are setting themselves up to fall.After seeing this film, I noticed it bore some resemblance to an earlier Kitano film--"Sonatine". Both have very similar themes, a similar deadpan performance by Kitano and feature some oddly surreal scenes of mobsters at work and play. And, both have ENORMOUS body counts. While good films and I certainly could respect how they were crafted, they also were both pretty unpleasant viewing and I can't imagine watching more of these! Well made but yuck! By the way, it was nice to see James Shigeta in this film. He was once a very popular actor but hasn't been as active in recent years. Also, during the course of all the killing, did you notice that NEVER did any police respond to any of the gunfire?! Maybe it's just too common an occurrence in LA...or the film just forgot about this.

Angelus2 Yamamoto is a Yakuza boss who is exiled to America and forced to live with his half-brother, but the life of a Yakuza seems to follow you everywhere as Yamamoto begins his violent rise to the top once more.Sanotine and Outage are perhaps two of Kitano's finest and if I had to pick between the two, Outrage would come on top...Brother is Kitano's transition to the States because apparently you're not a good director if you don't make a Hollywood movie! Brother is missing many Kitano's personal touches, his weird humour and his dark personality. The film seems to be just like all the other weak gangster movies that are churned out, with pointless violence and not a story to be told, I didn't find myself making any sort of connection with any of the characters unlike Murakawa in Sonatine and Otomo from Outrage.