Product: Brother [VHS]
Rating: 3.0
America Ruins a Great Film.
I recently rented Brother on DVD here in america last week. And was saddened to find that they edited a fair amount of scenes from the original version. The movie still functions with the scenes edited out, but I felt that these edited scenes brought more clarity to the movie. The edited amereican version doesn't quite have that clarity, and therefore suffers somewhat. The edited scenes were mostly in Japanese, and gave background on why Takeshi's character was going to LA. . Perhaps the studio felt that american viewers do not like to read subtitles or don't like seeing people in other countries. I am not sure why this was done, but I think that it takes away from the movie and shortchanges the viewer. Anyhow, it is Takeshi being Takeshi, and the movie is well done. Not a bad crossover film for Takeshi and Kitano. It's rather humourous at times and there is enough bad [butt]edness going around to make even the seasoned action flix fan happy. I would give it 5 stars had they not messed with it and edited scenes from the original.