The Brothers Sun

[Drunk Monk]

The Brothers Sun. January 4

I would have thought DM would have given the heads up on this one.

 
With a nice opening fight against masked tong ninjas, this show had me at hello. I’m 3 eps deep and that’s after watching two episodes of other shows. I’m tempted to watch more.

You get the gist from the trailer. Michelle is a tiny boss’s wife who went into hiding in LA, keeping their crime family past hidden from her younger son. But the tong is attacked forcing the elder son to come from Taiwan to protect them. It’s got solid choreography and good action pacing, black comedy, and nods to the Amerasian experience (because we are all in tongs, ya know). There’s a good eye for detail - for example, there’s a passing mention of Michelle and the gold basin, which is a reference of a specific ritual where someone leaves the martial world and washes their hands in a gold basin to symbolize washing off all the blood. 

In the first ep, a friend of mine, Bryan Cartago, plays a thug in orange. It’s a small part, a line and getting hit a few times, but it was cool to see him. He’s been doing stunt work for years now buti remeber him when he was a young wushu champ. We’ve hung out a bit over the years but not much since he moved to Hollywood. I think his character died already.

Michelle is killing it like always. She imbues the matron role with humor and gravitas, a passive aggressive tiger mom. She hasn’t fought yet. There was a tease scene but I suspect they’re saving that for later. Most of the heavy lifting fights are coming from Charles, the elder son. Some fun fights. I enjoyed the birthday party fight a lot. Overseeing choreo is Justin Yu, a former wushu champ who I know of but cannot recall if we ever met (if we did, we didn’t talk much). 

Aside from Michelle, most of the cast is unknowns. It’s well cast - everyone is fulfilling their roles satisfactorily. It like how the relationships are developing. 

D00M recommended.