Yakuza flick "Brother" (1 Viewer)

[Sutjahjo Ngaserin]

I think this one is worth watching...

 

[Brook K]

Yes it's worth watching, but it was a mistaken, compromise effort by Kitano, and he's made much better films like Fireworks, Sonatine, and Violent Cop.

 

[Edwin-S]

I was vastly disappointed by this movie. It could have been a good movie but failed miserably.

 

[Sutjahjo Ngaserin]

All I can say is that I was totally engrossed...

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

Well, when you put it up against Kitano's Sonatine, it does pale. But, on its own, it is well done and violent. And Beat Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano) is still one of the coolest motherf*ckers on screen.
Bruce

 

[Mathias Klemme]

I think it's great, but beware of the cut R-rated version!

 

[John Sturge]

It's exhausting. Sledge's site is closed until further notice, even Lange's page is inaccessible now.
It's just that besides Fireworks, Its a terrible time trying to even track down news about Kitano films DVD releases in The USA. Good ones too. I'm looking at this from another view, I dont want or need a player that play other regions.Anyway, I'm tired of waiting and I'm moving on.
Man, where are those brief making of clips for Brother and Hana-Bi on the internet?????
Now for Sonatine?? I bet that it will never be released here in the USA Rolling Thunder Pictures had it, sat on it, released a half a** version, then the company was washed away...Criterion then had some rights but as always they lost them(did they ever even have them?) So deep down in the vaults of Miramax Sonatine is being held hostage by Miramax. You know Criterion Collection could do a Kitano boxset....
I dont expect anyone to read or care about my comments... Their just out of that little frustration stuck deep down inside of me...
Takeshi Kitano Is Still The Ultimate Badass

 

[Brook K]

Sonatine is being released in R2 in England in the next few weeks.

 

[Jay E]

Does anyone know if the UK region 2 DVD is the uncut version? Thanks.

 

[Jussi Tarvainen]

It is.

 

[Anthony Thorne]

My concern about the UK SONATINE is whether the transfer will be any good. The reports of the VIOLENT COP DVD (from the same company?) weren't encouraging at all.

The fact that Rolling Thunder didn't bring out a nice looking DVD of SONATINE when they had the chance really tarnishes them in my eyes. Wasn't it 'cool' enough anymore? Did Tarantino worry that someone would see stuff he was perhaps thinking of 'borrowing' for his next movie? Since Tarantino announced the World War II film GLORIOUS BASTARDS as a future project (whilst remaining mum about the similarities between it and Enzo Castellari's World War II thriller INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, which Tarantino once raved about in a mid-90's issue of the British magazine GIALLO PAGES) nothing would surprise me.

There is/was a massive Taskeshi Kitano box set released in Japan a year or so ago, with 16x9 remasters of every Kitano film up to (I think) KIKUJIRO, and a disc of extras including an episode or two of his work from TV. Of course, the whole package lacked English subs.

I have the UK disc of BROTHER. I like it a lot (the doco from UK TV is excellent) even though it's not really my favourite Kitano movie. HANA-BI is at the top of my list (with SONATINE probably alongside it somewhere) and I'm still intending to track down that (reportedly gorgeous) Japanese DVD of the former. I can understand if some folks don't want to go to the extra expense of springing for a multi-region player, but it does go to show that interesting titles aren't restricted to Region 1. The next purchase on my 'must have' list is Pupi Avati's great horror film THE HOUSE WITH THE WINDOWS THAT LAUGH, remastered by Fox in Italy on a 16x9 DVD with English subs included. I've always wanted to see it, but if my player didn't have multi-region capability I'd be out of luck, to put it politely...

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

I can understand if some folks don't want to go to the extra expense of springing for a multi-region player, but it does go to show that interesting titles aren't restricted to Region 1

Well, when it comes to foreign films, Region 1 is usually sadly lacking. It gets alot of the upper-crust films but tends to dismiss those not widely circulated. Add to that the slip-shod methods of producing the discs that are available in Region 1 (Belle De Jour and Yi Yi, anyone?) and a Multi-Region player makes more and more sense every day.
Bruce

 

[John Sturge]

Hopefully, those silly inaccurate subtitles that were in the Rolling Thunder version, will not be there. I mean, why try to make a gangster film more gangster by making the characters say things they aren't saying.