How the yakuza's attack against director Juzo Itami inspired Michelle Yeoh's new dramedy “The Brothers Sun”
Jessica Wang
Fri, December 22, 2023 at 7:00 AM PST·5 min read
The Oscar winner and series creators Byron Wu and Brad Falchuk preview Netflix’s "The Brothers Sun."
On a Friday evening in May 1992, acclaimed Japanese director Juzo Itami, known for comedies Tampopo and A Taxing Woman, returned to his home in Tokyo not too long after the release of his latest film — Minbo, a satire about the yakuza — when he was brutally assaulted by three assailants. The filmmaker, then 59, suffered slash wounds on his face and shoulders and had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery.
Police believed the perpetrators were the yakuza, who were irked by Itami’s portrayal of them as witless bullies outsmarted by a cunning attorney (played by Itami’s actress wife Nobuko Miyamoto, who starred in all of his films) in Minbo. Itami, miraculously so, made a full recovery. The vicious incident laid the foundation for Netflix’s upcoming action dramedy The Brothers Sun, led by Academy Award winner and all-around badass Michelle Yeoh.
“It was funny how these gangsters were so insecure about their jobs that they felt the need to threaten a comedy director,” series co-creator Byron Wu, also a writer and executive producer on the series, tells EW. “Asian American male masculinity and insecurity was a thing I was thinking about at the time.”
Netflix
Michelle Yeoh and Sam Song Li in 'The Brothers Sun'
That led to the creation of characters Bruce Sun (played by a fantastic Sam Song Li) and his ditzy pal TK (Joon Lee), and, as Wu puts it, “the rest of the show grew out of that.”
The eight-episode series (out Jan. 4) follows the trials of Charles Sun (Justin Chien), the eldest son of a powerful Taiwanese gangster who’s settled into the life that his father has always wanted for him. When the patriarch is shot by a mysterious assassin, Charles travels from Taipei to Los Angeles to protect his mother Eileen (Yeoh) and younger brother Bruce (Li), the latter of whom is oblivious to his family's ties to the criminal underworld.
A rising faction emerges to challenge the influential Suns, prompting Charles, Eileen, and Bruce to come together to eradicate the threat. They must also heal the wounds caused by their separation — what's a family drama without some baggage? — and figure out their best path forward. “It's very much about what it means to be sons,” co-creator Brad Falchuk, also a writer and EP, says. “This idea of how hard it is to be sons, how hard it is to raise sons, how hard it is to keep a family together.”
Netflix
Joon Lee, Sam Song Li, Michelle Yeoh, and Justin Chien in 'The Brothers Sun'
A frequent Ryan Murphy collaborator behind such hits as American Horror Story and Pose, Falchuk says he was captivated by Wu’s complicated portrait of an Asian American family. “I don't know a lot about that, and it's not something we see a lot on TV,” Falchuk says. “My goal with every project is to explore some world I'm not familiar with and expose some new world to an audience.” But there's always a common thread: “There’s a lot of heart.”
The dramedy, which employed an all-Asian writers room (plus Falchuk), predominantly takes place in L.A.’s San Gabriel Valley, a region home to a sprawling Asian demographic and notorious for its bustling food scene. Between shots of sunny yellow egg tarts and vibrant leafy greens dropped into simmering pots of spicy soup, the food “became a character very naturally,” Wu says. “We wanted to show off the foods that we love.” (PSA: chili-dusted instant ramen might be effective for self-defense in times of danger.)
It was the cultural specificities that drew Yeoh, who recently dazzled audiences as a no-nonsense matriarch in the acclaimed Everything Everywhere All At Once, to the project. “I saw the story that they were trying to tell, where the narrative comes from our people, from our part of the world, the dark part of the world, but it is told with such humor,” she tells EW. “It was exciting, it was crazy, but the crux of the [story is] a mother and the love for her sons.”
Michael Desmond/Netflix
Justin Chien in 'The Brothers Sun'
Eileen undergoes her own journey that’s central to the story — one that “a lot of Asian immigrants, or any immigrant, can relate to,” Yeoh offers. “You had to leave your past behind for whatever reason and move to a new place, sometimes not knowing the language, not knowing anybody. That takes a lot of courage and determination. I'm happy I had the opportunity to show the lives of so many immigrant families that take that brave step — to show that it's not easy."
And of course, it wouldn’t be a Yeoh project without fight sequences. Do the stunts come second nature to the seasoned martial arts icon by now? “I am always trying to learn new things and hope that because I've had some experience, I am able to push it a little bit more," Yeoh says. But action sequences and mouthwatering food shots aside, the core of the story, Wu says, is a family "wrestling with their past, but moving forward into their future."
From his hospital bed recuperating from the attack, Itami had issued a defiant statement to the yakuza: “I'll not be discouraged." It's a sentiment that certainly rings true for the fictional Suns and countless other immigrant families forging their own paths.
The Brothers Sun debuts Jan. 4 on Netflix.
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Originally Posted by GeneChing
