Product: Brother [VHS]
Rating: 5.0
A great movie - beyond just violence
Beat Takeshi provides another violent movie, whose purpose seems to be that violence begets violence, and ultimately it's a dead end. The basic plot has Takeshi playing a yakuza forced to leave Japan upon the death of his boss. He finds his half brother in LA pushing drugs rather than attending school. Takeshi violently turns the small time crew into a major crime cartel.Yakuza themes of loyalty to family and honor over life pervade the movie. The omnipresent violence somehow avoids being gratuitous, perhaps because one realizes how more graphic it could have been. Unlike traditional western shoot 'em ups, we are left with the aftermath instead of the fight scenes themselves. At times it is hard to follow the plot and remember who is on whose sides, but perhaps that is the point.