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Brother Actors: Takeshi Kitano, Kuroudo Maki Director: Takeshi Kitano Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Format: Color, Widescreen, Closed-captioned, Dolby Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Running Time: 113 minutes Studio: Columbia/Tristar Studios Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2002-01-02 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.0 "Look for the beautiful smaller performances" For example, the young lady who played Marina was wonderful in her role, and brightened up this darkly humorous Gangster Noir film. Watch this clever film. "Senseless & Beautiful ? Like the Life Itself" A Japanese yakuza henchman (played by Kitano) named "Brother" came the States after his clan was destroyed in a mafia war back in Japan. Here the Brother organised his friends into a clan and started a cruel war on local mafia families to win a space. The newcomer is cruel and does not think twice before killing his rivals. However, what makes this movie worth watching is natural looking Darwinist style violence and relationships within his band beautifully played by Kitano and his actors. What always appealed me in Kitano's films is human interaction between central characters including the most negative ones. The Brother is cruel, strong, and a good marksman. He is not a kind of person you ordinarily would like to meet on a street. However, he ultimately sacrifices his life to save Danny, his black companion, from the band of Italians. But in the beginning of the movie those two characters had very few if any reasons to like each other after the Brother pokes Danny in the eye with a broken bottle, then cheats him in a game. Another moving scene is when the Brother's right hand man sacrifices his life to persuade another local Japanese criminal ring to merge with the Brother's operation. Simple, convincing and incomprehensible at the same time! I gave this movie five stars and highly recommend it to anyone interested in action. This film is The Action itself! "This Movie Is The Bomb" I would like to get a list of the music/soundtrack that was used for this movie. The movie was excellent. For those out there that have seen this movie it reminds me of the Lone Wolf and Cub series of movies put out in the seventies. The music that was chosen for this movie was great and I would like to know the songs and the artis of these tracks. All of the actors in this movie were superb. I would like to see them together again in another project. Everyone keep up the good work. "A paradigm of Kitano's unique, compelling storytelling." Though it lacks the subtle emotional resonance of Fireworks (Hana-Bi), Brother is nevertheless one of Takeshi Kitano's best films. It is certainly the most briskly paced, one of the best acted, and one of the most violent films in this master's oeuvre. Kitano's brilliance lies in showing you things in unexpected ways, often by means of excluding parts of the action that would be considered essential in conventional editing. But the boldness of his choices, the stunning photography, and the sure-handed editing all combine so that his unusual shot selection seems perfectly natural, a result of economy and artistic conviction, rather than unnecessary quirk or a desire to show off. His is one of the most distinctive narrative voices in cinema today. Kitano remains the perfect actor for his own directing and scripting. In Brother, as in Boiling Point, Kitano often takes the story away from his own character to explore supporting characters. But unlike in Boiling Point, here we have a supporting cast (headed by Omar Epps, who adapts into the Kitano style of comedy fluidly) thoroughly capable of holding our gaze, honororary mention going to Kuroudo Maki for his doggedly persistent portrayal of Yamamoto's younger half-brother Ken, Susumu Terajima as loyal (but also very funny) lieutenant Kato, and Masaya Kato as psychotic henchman Shirase. The title Brother has a broader application in this film. The Epps-Kitano chemistry is enormous, surprising because it usually consists of only a couple of small gestures and a few lines of deadpan dialogue. Given its meaning in both Japanese gangster-speak ("aniki") and American vernacular, it's a brilliant choice for a title. And Kitano shows that he can make a film with American actors without sacrificing any of his distinctive style. A must-see for Kitano fans, to be sure, but also crucial viewing for all cinema lovers who relish seeing a master at his peak. "Do Not Buy Region 1 DVD" Sony Pictures has tampered with the colors in Brother . Colors are not to be changed, they are to be left to their original tint or brightness. Today I bought Brother at Best Buy. I was happy to find that I got the last copy from the 2 shelves that held them. I was surprised that it was there, so I bought it. When I got to opening it, there was some nice cover art on the disc, and no collecter's booklet like on most Sony discs. I popped the disc in to my new Panasonic RP56 and set down to watch on my Phillips 16:9 HDTV. Never have I seen a film murdered in front of my eyes. Aniki's(main character) world is not thrilling but grim. It is somewhat gloomy. There is an occasional color flair(rare) to hint at a character's personality. Blacks are deep and accurate. There is tons of gray. Blue is on the dark side, green is in some scenes dark and other scenes light, finally red is crimson, and sometimes darker. All of this is represented accurately on the two DVD's I have previously watched(UK and Japan) and seen in a THX certified theater. The theater I saw the movie was dead on colorwise, and the picture quality was unbeatable. The above is thrown out the window in the Sony Pictures Classics version. Gray is subdued and no longer prevalent. Blacks are ruined. This killed quite a number of scenes. Blue is no longer dark or a little dark, it's just plain blue. Green is a neon green in some scenes and now is a bright. Red is pushed, but just enough that the color is a bit lighter. The beginning scene is tarnished by the Sony version. Takeshi Kitano is standing waiting for a cab. In the scene, Takeshi Kitano is supposed to stick out, and the background is covered with a thin gray, to make him prevalent. Instead the Sony Pictures Classic version completely takes out the gray, and the scene is then butchered. The scene where Kitano murders the Latino drug dealer the blacks are deep, the colors subdued. The Sony Pictures Classic version, pushes the flesh tones until the point of absurdity. The blacks are off, and the green door to the left of Claude Maki is now a bright neon green, whereas the other versions had the door dark green or a light pine green. There also to seems to be a fairly large quantity of edge enhancement, which is absent on the 3 other sources. Everything is made vibrant, which makes no sense considering this is a very dark movie. What doesn't help the Sony Pictures Classics version is that its edited. The movie begins with a Sony Pictures Classics label pasted over the Kitano label, with the background music still there. This tells you that, you are about to view an inferior version. There are various edits to the movie digitally. Such as painting over brain matter on walls from gun shot's, and time and gore edits. The stark emotion of the Hagakure scene is also killed by the editing. The features? Just some stupid trailers for some movies that remind me of the word... The audio is sub par, and with the lack of DTS, it not worth the purchase. They did fix the subtitle problem I had with Japan Version, but I fixed that when I traded it in for the United Kingdom version.