Blood Brothers

I have to be honest: I fell asleep during this filming. Partly because I was worn out from a full weekend of SIFF, and partly because, well, it's just not that great.

Blood Brothers is trying to be a classic gangster film retold in an asian setting. Men wear vests, suits, and fedoras, and smoke cigars. Women wear slinky dresses and sing jazz in smoky lounges while their mafia don boyfriends look on. Young kids from the country move to the big city and get caught up in a world of crime. Oh, and lots and lots of people get shot.

Maybe I just don't get asian facial expressions. I'm sure there's some cultural disconnect there. But none of the acting struck me as particularly believable. The sets were pretty, and the overall feel had some good character, but there were a lot of little details missing -- the smoky lounges weren't smoky, the don's girlfriend wasn't sophisticated enough, and everything felt a bit plastic. Just not my thing.

They didn't completely fail at what they were trying for, but they really didn't get all that close either.