Still, moviegoers have to give Kitano points for managing to maintain most of his trademark style -- both as an actor and as a filmmaker -- while directing an English-language movie with a largely American cast in an American setting. He is as deadpan, melancholy, and fatalistic as ever.
Brother opens with a dejected Aniki Yamamoto (Kitano) arriving at LAX and checking into a hotel, overtipping at every opportunity. As we soon discover in a flashback -- which is introduced in a completely confusing manner -- back in Japan Aniki has been targeted for death by his former yakuza family; one of his long-time comrades has taken the huge risk of sneaking him out of the country instead of killing him.
Banished from the only culture he knows, Aniki has come to Los Angeles to find his younger half brother, Ken (Claude Maki), who is a funky, low-level drug dealer in an Asian gang that includes one black guy, Denny (Omar Epps). Ken and his pals seem resigned and content, but Aniki is accustomed to functioning at a higher power level.
Almost immediately he takes charge. Almost as an animal instinct, he begins to lead the gang on a campaign to expand its turf and its power. In no time flat, he eradicates the Latino gang that controls the area. He accomplishes this partly through cunning, murderous ruthlessness, and being stone crazy; but he also has the ironic advantage of his foreignness. That is, he operates in ways that take his adversaries by surprise; it never occurs to them that this nobody who can barely communicate in English would have the sheer chutzpah to take them on, backed by a bunch of losers and street-level dealers. "Japs and niggers, big fucking deal!" sneers a rival boss -- moments before Aniki pumps a dozen bullets into him.
In short, Aniki has reversed the usual pattern of newly arrived immigrants: Rather than adjust to his new environment, he makes his hosts adapt to his way of thinking, bringing yakuza codes to the disorganized street gang. As surely as this brings the group initial success, it also guarantees its eventual destruction.
The gang moves upscale and inevitably comes up against another Asian-American gang, the members of which at least understand the ground rules of Aniki's thinking. But the real threat comes from the Italian Mob. At a certain point, the fact becomes clear that Aniki has put himself and his new buddies on a fast-moving train to nowheresville: We're all gonna die, they suddenly realize. They have advanced to the point where there is no backing down and no way to win.
All of Kitano's gangster films follow this pattern of pessimistic predetermination. The only difference: In this case there is at least the hope that one character may survive.
Brother is probably the most visibly bloody of Kitano's films. He has always been a master of sudden eruptions of violence in previously calm situations. At the same time, a more sentimental thread runs through Brother, concentrated in Aniki's relationship with Denny. For some reason Aniki forms a stronger bond with the one black guy in the gang than with any of the Asian Americans. This is hinted at without either clarity or plausible explanation, making it tough to buy. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that the bond is simply a calculated demographic move on the part of Kitano the filmmaker or the reflection of some sort of idealization of the lone African American as being somehow "more real" than the other characters.
While Kitano's face and acting style have a Bogart-like quality that makes him a natural to play cops and criminals, as a filmmaker he seems to have exhausted what he has to say on the subject. Given the virtues of Kikujiro and A Scene at the Sea (1991), his earlier forays away from crime films, it would be good for him to move along now. Brother may serve to introduce him to Americans who don't like foreign films, and it may drum up business for his earlier movies. But he has directorial virtues that cry out for a change of subject matter.
