Corpse disposal is a complicated business even at the best of times. All the more so if youтАЩre as hapless as the eponymous protagonists of тАЬThe Brothers Kitaura.тАЭ Masaki TsujinoтАЩs sophomore feature, which won the CriticsтАЩ Picks Competition at last yearтАЩs Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, is a tale of desperation compounded by incompetence and self-interest. When its characters find themselves in over their heads, they keep digging.
At the start of the film, older sibling Sota (Masaaki Nakano) is in a state of arrested development: unemployed, work-shy and still living with his elderly father, Goichi (Taka Takao). He may be in his 40s, but Sota acts like an eternal teen, sleeping in late, getting up to no good when heтАЩs home alone and leaving his dad to do all the cooking. So when the latter threatens to turf him out in favor of a potential marriage partner, the ungrateful son chooses fight over flight, leading to an altercation that ends with Goichi lying dead on the kitchen floor.
Unaccustomed to having to clean up his own mess, Sota enlists the help of his estranged brother, Akira (Hirota Otsuka), whoтАЩs already in a bit of a pickle himself. Once the familyтАЩs high-flier, the younger Kitaura is now facing personal ruin after an email blunder led to him getting fired for sexual harassment, then served divorce papers by his wife. YouтАЩd think he wouldnтАЩt want to add тАЬaccessory to murderтАЭ to his list of problems, but heтАЩs more concerned about his job prospects than doing the right thing. I mean, whoтАЩs going to hire the brother of a convicted killer, right?
