Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet.
I adore the work of Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano. He’s arguably my favourite writer/director/producer/editor/comedian/gameshow creator & host. There aren’t many like him in the entertainment world. Imagine if Jennifer Lopez – a talent that spans several entertainment sectors – created and hosted Deal or No Deal. Obviously, she didn’t. But it’s that type of WTF??!! that is so very Kitano, as he created, and appeared in, the amazingly violent gameshow Takeshi’s Castle (look out for him in one of the cars on the Storming of the Castle challenge). However, Kitano’s name is more synonymous in the West with filmmaking, and specifically violent movies. Films such as Zatoichi, Violent Cop, Sonatine, Hana-Bi, Boiling Point, the Beyond trilogy and plenty more. Some might know him from appearing in Battle Royale or Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence or Johnny Mnemonic or even the live-action version of Ghost in the Shell. He has made comedies as well, but his bread & butter is in violent movies. And most of his films – comedy or action – have been huge successes back in his native Japan. So, it’s easy to see why Hollywood, at the turn of the millennium, would want to try and bring him into their fold, like they did with John Woo, and get Kitano to spice up the mob movies of Hollywood with his own brand of distinctive violent moviemaking.
But sadly, Kitano’s Hollywood adventure turned into a bit of a nightmare. After Brother was released and in the rear-view mirror Kitano was vocal about the experience he had shooting in America. He didn’t like several aspects of it including the languid shooting pace (Kitano likes to shoot fast & loose and then edit around what he has later). The language barrier wasn’t one that put him off though. In fact, the film actually benefits from having Kitano’s Aniki not be able to speak English so has to rely on his estranged half-brother Ken to translate for him. It changes the dynamic of how power plays out between Aniki & his gang versus the local L.A. gangs, because it means that there are pauses… silences… between the highly aggressive dialogue while words are translated. It defuses the tension slightly. It also gives Aniki the upper hand as he is a master of patience. He very much likes the silence. It gives him power. Whereas the rival gangs see violence and noise and gun-play as their power. But Aniki’s silence confuses them. They have never seen this before. They are unsure how to take this new guy. Is he silent because he is stupid? Or is the silence a clever tactic? Kitano in-front and behind the camera loves the dialogue-less scenes in Brother. He fills a standard Hollywood gangster movie with quiet periods. It’s the complete opposite to what gangster/mob/Yakuza movies out of Hollywood in the 90s were doing. It was all-guns blazing and lots of swear-y dialogue. Not with Kitano. He flips the script and makes a film where the silences are the deadliest moments in the film because those who can’t handle the quiet start to fill it with words, and those words often get them into trouble and lead to things being exposed. A scene in particular is when Aniki and Ken are sat around a table with the leaders of a Hispanic gang. When Ken leaves the room, the gang leaders think Aniki doesn’t understand English so they start talking about what they are going to do to this “fucking Jap.” Aniki just sits in silence. They look at him and he gives a little smile. He then pulls out a gun and shoots everyone on the opposite side of the table. After he has finished, he says: “I understood ‘fucking Jap’ asshole.” It’s old Yakuza versus modern-day West Coast gangsters.
For all the silent violence in Brother, and Kitano loves a shot of a gun into camera accompanied by nothing else, the film’s noise comes from the overused dialogue. There is far too much 90s style, Tarantino-esc dialogue. Hip and trendy it might have been, but put it in a film that relies on quiet and it is a huge juxtaposition that throws everything off. Rapid fire lines come from the Hollywood cast, predominantly Epps whose character – Denny – enjoys relentlessly spouting off as he engages Aniki in a series of bizarre bets while they are sat around waiting to pounce on the next gang. Denny is a character that is very much a 90s gangster character – all verbal diarrhea, dressing all in black, prophesizing about what is going to happen when he next goes into a gun battle with an enemy. Through today’s eyes, this character is hideously dated. A stereotypical Black street gang member with added dress sense. It is the type of character we saw in many mainstream Hollywood gangster films throughout the late 90s and early 00s, but now it, seeing this type of character again, shows how ill-informed certain filmmakers were at the time when it came to developing those types of characters, usually with Black or ethnic people in the roles. Kitano himself doesn’t exactly create the most riveting American characters to play opposite. Usually, his bad guys have some ruthlessness to them or a sense of droll humour. But Brother lacks those Kitano styles and as such the film feels less like a Takeshi film and more like a run of the mill late 90s L.A. gangs movie with too much clunky dialogue.
However, for all the film’s faults in trying to create memorable characters and, outside of Aniki, failing, Brother is a worthwhile viewing experience to see Kitano try and take his signature style of silent violence to a filmmaking country that revels in loud & pompous violence. It might not fully work, yet Kitano’s Aniki is a fascinating fish out of water character to follow, and his silence is more frightening than all of the other characters put together. Aniki has a lot more in common with American mobsters like Michael Corleone rather than Vincent Vega. The strong, silent type.
Also, it’s worth noting that Joe Hisaishi’s score for Brother is probably one of his best ever. Beautifully composed that it’s almost an album you could chill to rather thank kill to. Hisaishi’s work with Kitano is, in my opinion, better than Hisaishi’s Studio Ghibli scores, and I like the music of Studio Ghibli. There is just something about the way Hisaishi scores a violence crime film. Chilled, downtempo and Lo-Fi. Almost the exact opposite of what you’d expect for that type of movie.
Tragically, Brother was cut several times upon release in North America (whereas, in the UK, and this release, it was released as Kitano intended). It was meant to give the Japanese filmmaker a wider audience and receive greater acclaim, but ultimately it was a minor ripple of a release and saw to it that Kitano would never make another film outside of his native Japan again. Yet I still found myself entertained by Takeshi and his style even in this lower/mid-tier Kitano gangster flick.
BROTHER is now available on Blu-Ray from the BFI.
