If nothing else, Brother confirms Kitano's stature as the most original purveyor of on-screen mayhem since Sam Peckinpah.

It's a romantic fantasy of the gangster brotherhood and their doomed lives, executed with Takeshi's unique mix of stoic ruthlessness and giddy energy.

Kitano's most enjoyable, flat-out fun movie, provided you can stomach the violence.

A wizard at manipulating time, Kitano introduces staccato elements that interrupt the meditative pace even as they help set it.

Mr. Kitano directed, edited and wrote Brother -- and his style of close-to-the-vest brutality travels extremely well.

Brother is a solid return to gangster form for Kitano, who knows how to transcend the most overly familiar genre clichés without betraying the rules of engagement.

When it works, which is often, Kitano's movie is an anthropology of the distinctions between Japanese yakuza and American gangsters.

Delivers some powerful emotional wallops alongside the chopsticks-up-the-nose violence, and manages the remarkable feat of making venerable American genre conventions seem eerily alien.

Sags, lollygags, and blusters too much to sustain the what-the-hell momentum that Kitano achieves in his best movies.

Enough odd twists to be mildly interesting.

A typical Kitano film in many ways, but not one of his best ones. Too many of the killing scenes have a casual, perfunctory tone.

Disappointingly hollow.

Cool killers - Kitano's stock in trade - do not necessarily make for cool movies.

While Brother may be the perfect introduction for Kitano newcomers, longtime fans may find it superfluous and even a step down from the likes of Hana-Bi (1997) and Sonatine (1993).