The Brothers Sun hits Netflix on January 4.
By Elazar Abrahams
Kicking off the new year in lukewarm fashion is the middling new action-comedy series The Brothers Sun, a well-meaning crime caper that never quite finds its footing through its eight-episode first season.
The show begins with the head of a powerful Taiwanese triad shot by a mysterious assassin, and his eldest son, legendary killer Charles “Chairleg” Sun (Justin Chien), heading to Los Angeles to protect his mother, Eileen (Michelle Yeoh), and his naive younger brother, Bruce (Sam Song Li) — who’s been completely sheltered from the truth of his family until now. What should be a thrilling sequence of events is marred by a strange tone of unsuccessful dramedy.
Song Li is excellent as Bruce, who, for all intents and purposes, provides the POV of the audience. Asian gang war is a foreign concept to him, just as it is to us. The poor kid is just trying to get through college! It’s a promising conceit, but creators Brad Falchuk and Byron Wu are attempting a show that wants to tug at your heartstrings as the family learns what true brotherhood means, while at the same time trying to stage action sequences of mafia factions going head-to-head for dominance, and also forcing some slapstick into the mix. And don’t forget a few romance subplots.
The Brothers Sun doesn’t do any of these formulaic building blocks particularly well, leading to a real slog of a series. The talent on screen is there, Michelle Yeoh is in this after all, but off-camera, the writing, production, and plotting is severely lacking. Brothers Sun isn’t funny enough to be a strong comedy, it isn’t serious enough to be a good drama, and the action is few and far between for it be considered exciting. The final product is then exactly what you’d expect.
When working with his frequent collaborator Ryan Murphy on shows like American Horror Story or Glee, Falchuk was able to strike gold on the unique genre blend he is after here. Unfortunately, on his own this time, it doesn’t seem to have yielded much success.
I give The Brothers Sun a C-.
TV and City 