With Brother After his festival successes, Kitano Takeshi was given the chance to conquer Hollywood as well – a plan that didn’t necessarily pan out at the international box office, but resulted in a fascinating cinematic melting pot that served as the politically incorrect (and more progressive) counterpart to Jim Jarmusch’s then celebrated Hagakure-gangster movie Ghost Dog can be seen. Kitano himself plays the Yakuza Yamamoto, who flees from Japan to the USA after the annihilation of his clan, where he tracks down his small-time criminal half-brother in Los Angeles and soon gets involved in the clashes between various gangs for supremacy in the drug trade. Brother was designed as a nod to the classic gangster film (in the way Joe Hisaishi’s music embraces multiple US styles ranging from hip-hop beats to jazz harmonies), but as an old iconoclast, Kitano eventually chooses obliteration over appropriation, letting his penchant for beautifully abstracted ones go Images of death and violence run wild. The film of an indomitable. (CH)
“Brother”: Win tickets for the film museum!
