Brother

Plot synopsis:
In the autumn of 1997, Danila Bagrov (Sergei Bodrov Jr.) returns to his small hometown of Priozersk following his demobilization from the Russian Army after the First Chechen War. Before he reaches home, he ends up in a fight with security guards, after he accidentally walks onto the set of a music video for the band Nautilus Pompilius. After Danila rejects a job offer from the chief of the local militsiya, who was a classmate of Danila's deceased father, he is released, on the condition that he will find work within the week. His mother insists that he travels to St. Petersburg to seek out his successful older brother Viktor, whom his mother is confident will help him make a living.
Danila travels to the city, but his attempts to make contact with Viktor are unsuccessful. Instead, he travels around the city and befriends several people from a very wide urban spectrum: Kat (Mariya Zhukova), an energetic drug addict and party-girl, and "German" Hoffman (Yury Kuznetsov), a homeless street vendor whom Danila helps after a thug attempts to extort him. Danila knocks the thug unconscious and takes a revolver from his pocket.
Unbeknown to their mother, Viktor (Viktor Sukhorukov) is an accomplished hitman who goes by the street name "Tatar" but is growing too independent and is starting to irritate his mob boss "Roundhead" (Sergei Murzin). His latest target is "Chechen", a Chechen mafia boss who was recently released from prison and runs an open-air market. Roundhead, who is unhappy with the amount of money that Viktor demanded for the hit, orders his thugs to secretly watch him.
When Danila finally finds Viktor's apartment, he is welcomed by Viktor. To avoid exposure, Viktor passes his assignment to his brother, gives him money to settle into the city, and then lies to him that the Chechen has been extorting from him, and asks Danila to perform the hit. Although Danila claims that his army service was spent at the headquarters as a clerk, he carries out the task professionally. First, he asks German to find him a room in a communal flat in the city center (much to the dismay of the old alcoholic landlord who threatens to shoot German with his vintage hunting rifle, as revenge for World War II). He then constructs a makeshift silencer out of a plastic soda bottle and an oil filter, as well as a decoy firecracker out of a matchbox. Finally, he follows Chechen and, despite the latter's security, takes him out without being spotted. As Danila makes his exit, Roundhead's thugs spot him and chase him. Making his escape, Danila jumps into a freight tram and, despite being wounded in the abdomen, manages to kill one of the pursuing thugs.
The tram driver, a woman named Sveta (Svetlana Pismichenko), helps Danila escape. Later, despite her marriage to an abusive husband, the two begin an affair. Danila later recovers, with German's help. With the money given to him by Viktor after the hit, he begins to enjoy St. Petersburg, gives his provincial image a makeover, goes to a concert with Sveta to see his favorite band, Nautilus Pompilius, and manages to scare away her husband. He meets up with Kat to go to a nightclub and then smokes cannabis in an afterparty, where he taunts a French tourist whom he mistakes for an American. The night ends with him sleeping with Kat.
Roundhead's loss of a thug and the fact that Viktor employed Danila to carry out the hit aggravates him even more. He decides to draw him into a combined raid. Once again Viktor, suspecting a trap, passes the job to Danila. The two thugs raid the apartment, but their main target is away. While they wait, in an apartment on the floor above, a party is taking place with several well-known Russian rock stars. A young radio director, Stepan (Andrey Fedortsov) mistakes the raided flat for the party flat and is almost killed by the thugs, who take him as a hostage. Vyacheslav Butusov, the lead singer of Nautilus Pompilius, makes the same mistake, but Danila instead follows Butusov above and relaxes in the friendly musical atmosphere. Realizing the balance between right and wrong, he comes downstairs and finds that the thugs have just killed their main target, and are about to do the same with Stepan. Instead, Danila kills both thugs. Danila and Stepan drag the corpses to the Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery, where German and his friends dwell. Once again, German helps Danila by disposing of the bodies.
Roundhead is furious upon finding out what happened. Instead of going after Tatar, he decides to track Danila and intercepts Sveta's tram. They later raid her apartment, where his men beat and rape her, and learn his phone number, as well as his address. A henchman nicknamed "Mole" ambushes Danila near his apartment building, but the bullet hits Danila's music player, giving him a chance to fire back and kill Mole. Realizing that staying home is unsafe, he travels to Sveta's house and is shocked at her state. Initially thinking it was her husband, he then learns who was responsible and realizes that the only way they could have tracked Sveta was when he returned a phone call from her home telephone to his brother.
At the same time, Roundhead raids Viktor's apartment and forces him to call Danila at gunpoint, so that he comes to pick up his payment. Realizing the depth of the situation, Danila decides to end it all at once. He goes back to the communal room that he was renting, buys the rifle from the old man, converts it into a sawed-off shotgun, and replaces the duck-hunting pellets with nailheads. At Viktor's apartment, he makes easy work of Roundhead and two of his henchmen and tells the surviving thug to warn the rest of the gang that anyone who hurts his brother will be killed. In reply, the thug tells him that it was Viktor who turned him in.
Danila forgives his brother, gives him some of the money from Roundhead's suitcase (keeping the rest for himself) and then tells him to return home and to work for the militsiya. Danila decides to go to Moscow, as St. Petersburg, according to Viktor, "is a pretty town, but provincial nonetheless". Once again he visits Sveta, intending to take her with him, but her husband has returned and is beating her. Seeing Danila, he challenges him to a fight, but before he can come closer, Danila fires a shot into his leg. Sveta rushes to her husband and begins to treat his wound. Danila urges her to come with him, but she tells him to get out and never come back. He leaves her a Nautilus Pompilius CD. He then meets up with German, converses with him about the influence of the city on its residents, saying that everyone is weak here, to which German replies that the city is an evil that drains the strength from those who enter it. Danila offers him money, but German declines, saying "What's good for the Russian is death for the German". Before he leaves the city, he finds Kat to say goodbye. She is indifferent to his departure, but he gives her money nonetheless.
The last scene of the film shows Danila walking out of a snow-covered forest. He hitches a ride to Moscow on a passing Kamaz truck. As he chats up with the driver, the final shot is of the winter road stretching far into the wilderness.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
Brother (2000) marks the English language directorial debut for Takeshi Kitano in this cross over gangster film about a deposed Yakuza living in exile on the streets of L.A. This entertaining and surprisingly fast moving picture (for a Kitano film) release date was delayed in the United States by more than a year.
Violent confrontations with other gangs and mafia take place as everyone is willing to use violence and vengeance in order to settle things.Brother has all the usual and breath taking Kitano elements we've learnt to see.
It is so purifying scene and really makes the point clear, but still, most people don't understand anything about Kitano's films, because they are so personal and different compared to Western mainstream films.Brother is like a combination of Violent Cop and Hana'Bi. It has Violent Cop's bleakness and Hana-Bi's beauty and sadness.
Kitano definitely doesn't justify violence or praise it; he just shows what most people or film makers probably wouldn't even dare to think of, and once the viewer may be thinking "yeah, kill that b****rd!" the film turns against the viewer and makes him think what he just said and accepted.
Brother has many great personal touches of its creator and every time Kitano's character laughs here, there is something very twisted in his mind and going on.
But the shift to an American location weakens it, despite the excellent contributions of the US actors, especially Omar Epps.But the core, unmissable qualities of a Kitano film remain.
The sound-track from Joe Hisaishi matches the screen action perfectly, at times an aggressive supplement to the violence, at other times hauntingly peaceful.The ending is the film's weakest part, as though Kitano pandered to imagined (or real) American requirements.
there isn't much English dialogue in this movie, but there's enough - it's understandable as it's about a Yakuza gangster(Kitano) who is Exiled from Japan only to form an American Yakuza overseas in the U.S.
Omar Epps is in this as Denny, he is pretty good in this but it was the Japanese in this movie that really made this worth the watch...
"Brother" may be Kitano´s most well-known and successful movie, but after all it´s just another sign that success at the box offices doesn´t make the perfect movie, because it lacks in many respects: the story is too one-dimensional and delivers nothing really new, the characters are not developed enough, excluding the brilliant play of Omar Epps and, of course, Kitano himself.
The music, which like in all Takeshi films is lush and emotional, directs our feelings.Brother is great for fans of crime movies, gangsters, violence overall, Asian cinema, and even action fans, but Takeshi Kitano's style is a strangely deadpan and very personal approach.
And it doesn't take Yamamoto long to plan some drastic improvements for his little brother's gang...Takeshi Kitano's performance is once again superb, this guy certainly is one of the greatest cinematic multi-talents who ever lived.
I found the Japanese characters great in general, and if it was only for them, "Brother" would have probably almost reached Kitano's masterpieces in brilliance.
Omar Epps certainly is a good actor, but his character of Denny is just not very deep, simply the very stereotypical African American street gangster seen in two out of three cheesy Hollywood blockbusters.
No body does it better?I tell my self,Takeshi Kitano only gets better and better during the years,The movie´s plot is about a yakuza member(Takeshi)who goes to the U.S in the search for is younger brother who now a days is in the drug business Instead of what would happen in a U.S gangster movie,Takeshi dosn´t become mad when he finds out about is brother´s whereabouts.He declares war against every drug seller he can get is hands on.He wants to rule it himself.I must have seen about 3000 movies in my life(33 years old) and nothing is as violent as this one.It´s over the top Ultra violence during all the movie,it had a slight similarity to the greatest movie of all times Brian De Palmas Scarface.
I recommend this film to anyone who likes gangster movies or violent flicks.
'Brother', Kitano's mostly marvellous new feature, is imbued with all things Melville, from the opening silent wandering of Yamomoto, like Jef in 'Le Samourai', to the muted blue colour palette, faceless glass buildings and grey ritual beach of 'Un Flic'  Most pertinent, however, is Melville's under-rated 'Deux hommes dans Manhattan', which also starred the director.
Like that film, 'Brother' is Kitano's first American film, his first cultural work in the country of origin of the urban genre he has made his own.
In other words, Kitano has taken foreign money to make an uncompromisingly personal film which, like 'Boiling Point' and 'Kids' Return', turns the gangster film into a rite of passage..
This is the only film Japanese crime filmmaking legend, Kitano Takeshi, has ever made in America.
Also the violence was very similar, for example instead of going for the John Woo style acrobatic action, the violence is cold and harsh, making it impact more on me as a viewer, I think that's why John Woo's films travel better in western cinema that Kitano's work.I thought the acting was very good, but the black members of the gang were perhaps a little stereotypical.
I haven't seen any of Takeshi Kitano's other works, but in my opinion this is a brilliant film.
Brother is a deep, moving and action filled movie with a twist of Kitano's usual humor.
Like with all his movies, Kitano seems to deeply get into his character and as a bonus, we get a great performance by Omar Epps.
I don't know what to really say about brother, except that it is a brilliant gangster movie.Beat is an incredible actor/director/writer.
I hope that he will make a splash here in the states, and the studios whenever they let him, just give him enough of a budget, so they don't make the same mistake that they made with john woo and let him do windtalkers (a movie that i dig, but audiences and critics lambasted)The story is familiar to fans of character based crime movies, its all about loyalty, much like the godfather series, goodfellas, the killer, resevoir dogs, king of new york, gangster number 1, once upon a time in america, mean streets, a better tommorow and a slew more of movies.give this a chance, its well worth the investmentsincerly william.
Takeshi Kitano's Brother is a powerful, unpredictable and at times beautiful film about gangster warfare, the strictness and honour of the Yakuza, but above all, it is a film about friendship.
I'm not too sure really where I should start on this film, but what I found so startling and enthralling (apart from the extreme violence) was the way in which each character, expecially those of Aniki (Takeshi) and Denny (Epps), was depicted; Aniki as fiercely loyal and occasionally psychotic, yet mostly restrained, quiet and polite, with an engaging sense of humour, and Denny, who embodies a certain kind of innocense and honesty, as well as oppenness and trust, which allows the friendship between he and Aniki to develop.
The performance of Omar Epps as Denny is really excellent, especially during the final scene of the movie, where we really feel the extent to which these two characters have bonded, even though they barely speak the same language or share any cultural similarities.
i won't bore you with story details, get it or read the taglines.what i just saw, was an ultra violent, yet silent adaption of a classical mafia movie that comes with a a yakuza flavor.in some way, this was what the godfather III could have been.
Like Kitano's other movies, it's funny at times, contemplative in others and yet it is even more gut-wrenchingly violent.
Though everyone that fought their way into `Planet of the Apes' missed out on flawless directing, cinematography, acting, and storytelling.Takeshi Kitano (or Beat Takeshi') is Yamamoto, a Yakuza gangster that flees to Los Angeles after his gang is wiped out in a mob war (and boss annihilated in a brutal crossfire).
Though everyone that fought their way into `Planet of the Apes' missed out on flawless directing, cinematography, acting, and storytelling.Takeshi Kitano (or Beat Takeshi') is Yamamoto, a Yakuza gangster that flees to Los Angeles after his gang is wiped out in a mob war (and boss annihilated in a brutal crossfire).
In all Kitano's movies, there is a strong emphasis on visual effects including extreme violence but also breathtaking shots and slow filming.
If you want to see a ultra-hip, stylized, aesthetics-over-plot Asian movie (Hong Kong), try "The Odd One Dies" (1997) or "Fallen Angels" (1995), both with Takeshi Kaneshiro.Or if you want to see an equally obtuse and mindless film, but very stylized action pulp noire, try Seijun Suzuki's classic "Branded To Kill" (1967)."Brother" is a complete bomb.
Takeshi Kitano is an excellent filmmaker.Brother is a great movie from this great director.The best thing about Brother is that the violence is realistic to show the gangsters world.The movie is slow but it never bores(it's always fun).The movie doesn't show Yamamoto(the main character acted by Kitano)as a monster.He shows that he's a normal person and shows the relationship between another gangsters and with feelings.Fireworks is my favorite movie directed by Kitano,but there's no doubt that Brother is another great film from this great director.A must see.Rating:9.
Kitano doesn't seem fully convincing in the American sequences, the relationship between his character and Omar Epps' could do with some more fleshing out, and there are a few too many scenes where characters "explain" plot points like the audience can't be trusted to get it by themselves.
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.
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 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.
I feel like this was the pinnacle of Takeshi's career when it was made, as if his earlier movies (VIOLENT COP etc.) were all building up to this moment, a film in which everything is done just right.It's not a film to describe too much, as that would spoil the story.
Takeshi Taktino has been a great crime director since the eighties, his sort of step into western cinema "Brother" is a heavy hitting gangster film about loyalty, blood bonds and sometimes confusing story telling.
This starts the rise of the gang from the street-level to holding actual turf within the organised crime world of LA, however the violent rise to power brings them increasingly into conflict with the larger masters of the scene.I eventually gave up listening to the Movies You Should See podcast (I got fed up hearing about "this bit" and "that bit" in what was essentially plot synopsis) one of the last I listened to reminded me that not only has it been over a decade since I saw a Kitano-directed film, but that I have actually seen surprisingly few of those considered required viewing.
Some have said about the language barriers but I do not think this was an issue so much as there just not being sufficient emotional content in the story, characters and performances.Brother is worth seeing as an alternative gangster film and an unusual product.
There was nothing really original or groundbreaking in this movie, not much that I hadn't seen before, and I got the overall feeling that Takeshi (who holds so many reigns; actor, editor, writer, and director) was having trouble functioning outside of his native environment which is why the film seemed so unpolished and sloppy.
Brother gives a good insight in the world of the Yakuza, that can sometimes be quite shocking.Some scenes are horrible, but luckily such scenes are not shown in a way that typical violence movies do it, but in a more objective way, with no excessive amounts of blood or gore.
Kitano can do so many things at once--besides making a movie that's even violent by his own exceptional standards, I mean.There's a few levels of movie-within-a-movie here:  Takeshi the director crosses the Pacific, as does his usual character (by now, Takeshi, like John Wayne, can only play one character, but who'd want either to play anything else?)  and first we get the Rumble-in-the-Bronx trappings of an Asian superstar comes to America movie--only this time it's in L.A., a city that never looked so Japanese until Takeshi turned his eye toward it.
I'm a big fan of Kitano's movies so I know I'm going to like anything he does.
Brother feels at times better than his more lyrical gangster films (Hana Bai or Sonatine) and closer to the more straightforward attitude of Violent Cop or Boiling Point.
On a plot level Kitano and his black brother are both offered ways out of situations that in previous films would have led immediately to a shoot out with no hope.
Be warned - the film's portrayal of violence is extremely blatant; even John Woo fans will be cringing at parts.Kudos to Takeshi Kitano for his perfect performance as a Yakuza gangster and Omar Epps for his surprising yet poignant portrayal as the associate who becomes more than just a friend.
Takeshi Kitano's latest work is not as good as some of his others, such as Hana Bi, and is certainly his most violent film to date.
As befits a Beat Takeshi film, there is a lot of violence and quite a bit of humour.Beat Takeshi plays Yamamoto, a former Yakuza who comes to America to visit his brother.
It's unfortunate that this will be the introduction to Takeshi Kitano's work for many people as it is probably his worst movie (only Getting Any?
Brother retains some of what makes Kitano's movies memorable, but is sunk by some cumbersome dialogue, some dreadful acting (Omar Epps is appalling, especially in the risible final scene) and pandering to what he seems to perceive as American tastes.
This movie was so capturing and you could really feel for the characters.Aniki (played by beat takeshi) really reminded me of my grandpa, in the way he acts, moves, talks and handles.
After watching these two movies I was lead to one of Takeshi's latest films called Brother.
I was rather impressed with the variety of actors used in this film and I thought that Takeshi Kitano himself was brilliant.
Brother was the first film from Kitano i had the pleasure to watch.It won't be the last!
A Japanese gangster is exiled to the United States where he moves in with his little brother...together he starts up all the drug/turf control troubles he just left when he and his brother try to become bigshot dealers.The highlight of this move is the action and violence...and after that Takeshi is the best thing this movie has going for it.Lots of fast action and gunfire.Omar is OK in it but Over the top in his acting...the half brother is very good.If you like good action with high production standards watch this one..
'Brother', Takeshi Kitano's last masterpiece, is, hands down, the best movie I've seen in 2001.
One thing is clear to me now: Takeshi Beat Kitano is a man who knows how to make a compelling movie that is hard and tender at the same time..
I would like to say that there is more to the plot, but sadly, it is about as deep as it gets: fairly linear, with no surprises.Although Takeshi Katano has done some good work, the characters in this film are all two dimensional.
That said, the movie is very linear, unnecessarily violent, and despite it being an American - Japanese film, full of the worst stereotypes of both worlds.
That said, it's time to lay it down...regardless of the filmaker's intentions, this movie SUCKS."BROTHER" is about a Japanese gangster relocated in L.A.,he is a big man in the Yakuza, and he kills people, lots of people.
I am a big fan of Japanese movies and I really like Kitano so I watched with interest and it payed off big time.
While this is an extremely violent gangster movie I can't help but think of it as an art film.
I haven't seen anything else from Takeshi Kitano so far, but I sure hope his fans are right about "Brother" being one of his lesser works, because frankly this is a very bad movie: shallow, choppy, often incomprehensible and gratuitously violent (i.e, characters who have no bearing on the plot appear out of nowhere to commit violent acts just so that these violent acts can be included in the film - is there any other explanation for the "disemboweling" sequence?).
unlike the great hana-bi where kitano managed to keep his gun in his pants for a while and concentrated on the story instead, brother once again falls back to the mediocre violence often seen in his movies.