Brother

At the time of its  release, Brother was hyped  as Kitano's vehicle for breaking into the United States film market.  Mostly , the film is a  successful  transposition of his trademark  melancholic violence,  playful humour and brutal editing,  and in this respect Kitano maintains an artistic and thematic continuity with his earlier films.  Kitano plays a Yakuza gangster who is exiled to the United States.  He has his half  brother living there so he has a place to live in.  Soon he starts to have new friends and become a leader of their new gang.   Kitano gives full shrift to examining the Yakuza sub-culture with  its codes of chivalry, obligation, loyalty, obedience and brotherhood.  Members of a Yakuza clan maintain a fanatical loyalty to their anikis  within the gang with a willingness to put  one's life on the line.   The violence is very brutal and challenging  but definitely not gratuitous or exploitative.  His violence is  always very symbolic and sudden, and not necessarily realistic.  This film contains all the element which we have seen in his other films-flashbacks of events,  long shots without editing, characters faces which say so many things more than words.