The Brothers Sun – Mother Michelle Yeoh

My rating: 7.9/10
Moment of the review: 27/01/2024 – Few days after finishing season 1

What is The Brothers Sun about

‘Big Sun’, head of a Taiwanese triad, is shot during a surprise attack and asks his sun, Charles, to go to Los Angeles to protect his mother, apparently key to the war between Triads.

Charles discovers that his mother, Eileen, and brother, Bruce, live a simple life away from the violence and crimes. She is a nurse and he is a medicine student with a secret passion for improv. We then learned that Eileen is the key in the war between Triads because she is the Rolodex, the only one knowing the true identities of all the ghosts, the Taipei’s crime bosses, which is why she had the leave Taiwan and Charles years ago and why she needs to be protected.

To protect his family, Charles goes after Sleepy Chan, another crime boss, but quickly discovers that the true enemy is a new entity known as the Boxers created to destroy all Triads.

Our review of The Brothers Sun

It would be hard for us to understand how someone would not like this Netflix big production because it has everything: gun, blood, humour, romance, betrayal, travel, food, family, … It is never too much in one direction or another: the fight scenes never get too bloody while still being impressive; the comedy moments are funny while not taking away from the plot of the story.

The plot is pretty simple with this already-seen crime vs simple life/separated years ago situation but The Brothers Sun succeeds to keep us interested along the way even if all seem always to be a bit too easy. How would you react if you were to discover that you were from a mafia family? Well, according to the show, it took Bruce only 3 seconds 50 to accept it.

Talking about Bruce, unfortunately where he has naturally a central role in the series, he is quite annoying which we guess is on purpose but let’s just say that it could have been a little bit less obvious.

In the first episodes, we didn’t understand how Michelle Yeoh’s role will become as important as it seems to be in the trailer but we loved how it was built up and not giving right away. We loved her in Crazy Rich Asian and in (obviously as expected) Everything Everywhere All At Once and, even if the show is right her genre, we can only be happy to see her again specially as the last scene give the idea of a possible season 2.

What the internet says

We are right there with the users of imdb who gave the show a 7.7/10: 
«It’s funny most of the time, and seriously action-packed at other times.»
«The main issue lies in one of the main characters, Bruce, who single-handedly ruins the series.»
« I would like to see another season of this.»

Mother Michelle Yeoh has one of the best character development in the show for our greatest pleasure

If you like The Brothers Sun, you might want to watch

We can go three Netflix ways here: or you take the family action-comedy road with secret agents Fubar which we reviewed last August or you take the woman leading a cartel highway with Sofia Vergara’s Griselda, which we will review very soon or you go for comedy gold and asian excellence Beef.

See our other reviews:

Palm Royale – The disappointment of the season

«I felt like I was being promised something great… eventually… and it never shows up.»

Baby Reindeer – Keep the curtains up

We were impressed by the story but then our jaw dropped on the floor when we learned that the main actor was actually the person who the story happened to.

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