Brother (film)

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Movie
German title Brother
Original title Brother
Country of production Japan ,
Great Britain ,
United States
original language English ,
Japanese
Publishing year 2000
length 114 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Takeshi Kitano
script Takeshi Kitano
production Masayuki Mori ,
Jeremy Thomas
music Joe Hisaishi
camera Katsumi Yanagishima
cut Takeshi Kitano,
Yoshinori Oota
occupation

Brother is a Japanese yakuza film from 2000. Takeshi Kitano acted as director, screenwriter, film editor and lead actor in the action film .

action

Yamamoto is a member of a Yakuza clan, the leader of which is killed. In order to avoid a war between the clans involved, the members of the leaderless clan - except for Yamamoto - are accepted into the other clan. This is said to be killed by a Yakuza brother - as a vote of confidence in his new clan. Instead of killing him, he persuades his older brother (Japanese: Aniki ) Yamamoto to emigrate to the USA . There, in Los Angeles , his younger (biological) brother Ken is studying .

Once in LA, the monosyllabic Yamamoto goes looking for his brother - he doesn't seem to be able to speak English. There is a bump on the street with the Afro-American Denny , and a bottle breaks. Denny tries to exclude Yamamoto - whom he thinks is an Asian tourist . But he uses the broken bottle to stab Denny in (or around) his eye.

In a Japanese restaurant, Yamamoto gets a hint where he can find his brother. Once there, he discovers that his brother deals in drugs instead of studying. Shortly afterwards, the bandaged Denny reappears: he is a friend of Ken.

When these street thugs get into an argument with Mexican dealers who supply them with fabric, Yamamoto takes on the problem in his "Japanese" way and kills everyone. A little later, another Yakuza brother from the disbanded clan appears: Kato . When asked how things are going here, Yamamoto says laconically: just like in Japan .

During a round of negotiations with the Mexican bosses (Yamamoto makes the bosses think he cannot understand their language) he and Ken shoot them and thus take over their district. From now on, they murder everything that gets in their way without hesitation. In their "headquarters" they spend the rest of the time with small games and sports. Aniki has since started a relationship with a woman. Meanwhile, Yamamoto's brother is committing seppuku in Tokyo .

Kato doesn't speak English either, has an imposing tattoo on his back like Aniki, and is hopelessly inferior to basketball because of his size. He is rather skeptical of the relationship between Aniki and his wife. He finds friendship with an old gang member of Ken and Denny. Yamamoto and Denny slowly become friends (and are now also traveling in the stretch limousine ). When Denny accidentally shoots Aniki in the stomach during a raid on her quarters, he is temporarily out of business.

A successful and very brutal organization is being built under Yamamoto's leadership. This is supposed to happen through a merger with another Japanese clan. The notorious boss of this clan - Shirase - refuses a merger. Kato demonstrates his unconditional loyalty to Aniki to Shirase by making the ultimate sacrifice and shooting himself in front of Shirase's eyes. Shirase submits, but wants to be Aniki's deputy.

In the further course there are conflicts of interest with the Italian mafia . The mafia wants to have a 50 percent share in the profits, which Shirase denies them. It is the beginning of a bloody mafia war.

Yamamoto and his men have no chance. The overpowering and mostly faceless opponent assassinated one after the other, and also wiped out Yamamoto's girlfriend and Denny's entire family. Only Denny and Aniki are left. Aniki has now found a good friend in Denny who is more valuable to him than his biological brother.

The two kidnap the godfather of the Italians, take him for a walk, and play mock execution in the desert. Yamamoto forces Denny at gunpoint to walk around the sand dune in front of the godfather. Aniki shoots past Denny a few times and gives him to understand that he should get away with the car (here it becomes clear that Aniki sees this as the only way to get Denny to safety). Then he goes back to the godfather, who calls him an "ice cold son of a bitch" because he just kills his own people. Aniki lets the godfather go, knowing full well that his end will come soon.

While Denny disappears in the car towards the horizon, he opens a bag that Aniki gave him. It is bulging with wads of money. Denny starts to cry and thanks Aniki several times loudly.

Meanwhile, he is sitting in a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. It is run by an old Japanese who speaks to Aniki in Japanese. Several black cars pull up at the same moment. The mafia killers found Aniki. He puts some money on the counter for his bill and tells the old Japanese that the rest is for repairs. Then he goes into the barrage of the mafia killers without much emotion .

reception

The film was shown at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2000 and at several other film festivals in the following period.

On December 13, 2000, the film was released under the title Aniki, mon frère in French cinemas and was seen there almost 250,000 times. In the United States, where the film started off limits on 6 April 2001, he played more than 447,000 US dollars a. On January 27, 2001, the film was released in Japan, where the film grossed 888 million yen .

Box Office Mojo , according to, as of June 25th 2008, played the film world so far just over 15 million US dollars ( Total Lifetime Large ). The IMDb estimates the budget at 12 million US dollars.

Critics were divided about the film. Roger Ebert criticized that too many of the murder scenes have a careless, superficial sound.

"In fact, the film is so stereotyped in the genre that it even adopts ethnic clichés about Japanese [...]"

- Tom Mes : Midnight Eye

The film is on Rotten Tomatoes on June 25, 2008 with 46 percent with 68 evaluated reviews (50 percent of 4 top critics), with Metacritic 47 percent with 23 evaluated reviews. In the IMDb , with the votes of 8,355 viewers on the same day, he ranks 7.1 out of 10 points.

Awards

Susumu Terajima won the supporting actor award at the Mainichi film competition for his portrayal of Kato in 2002 .

DVD versions

In addition to the original version, the film was also released on DVD in Germany in a version shortened by around 19 minutes with the age rating FSK 16.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lumiere
  2. ↑ Cinemakun.com ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / cinemakun.com
  3. ↑ Brother. In: Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 25, 2008 .
  4. ↑ Box office / business for Brother (2000). In: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved June 25, 2008 .
  5. ^ Review by Roger Ebert
  6. ↑ Tom Mes: Brother. In: Midnight Eye. Retrieved June 25, 2008 .