The Brothers Sun Hits the Netflix Sweet Spot, for Good and Ill

At some point—I don’t know when, but I would probably pinpoint it around 2020—Netflix decided in a permanent sense what it wanted its original dramatic programming to be. Their answer was to scale up the watchability, and scale down the ambition. All in all, it reads like a successful blueprint for mass viewing, but a detriment to quality. It’s hard to imagine shows like Orange is the New Black, Mindhunter, Bloodline, Narcos, or even Ozark being greenlit on the current version of the service; things run simpler now, and while this may sound like a broad proclamation, the shows we get now are more in line with The Diplomat or The Lincoln Lawyer or Kaleidoscope—some better than others, all of them easy to consume, but not really striving for greatness.

To this latter group we can now add The Brothers Sun, the black comedy/action thriller that hits the same centers of the brain as all of the above. Here, Justin Chien and Sam Song Li star as Charles and Bruce Sun, both sons of a Taiwanese warlord, but about as different as can be. Charles is the brother who came up in the game, tough and menacing, ready and extremely willing to kill if necessary, while Bruce was the boy who was ushered away to America as a kid, is studying to be a doctor, and loves improv comedy… the kind of kid whose own mother refers to him as “soft” as often as possible. That mother, Eileen Sun, is played by Michelle Yeoh, good as ever, with a kind of steel-will expressed in brutal assessments of her boys, the world, and life itself. The three main characters work well together, and though this is probably the kind of series I won’t feel compelled to finish, due to the utter lack of time, if you twisted my arm and made me finish it, I wouldn’t protest too much.

There are other compliments to be paid here; the fighting is terrific, the cinematography, whether it’s in the shadowy skyscrapers of Taiwan or the sunny climes of southern California, creates the right moods, and though almost every supporting character is played extremely big, they all manage to contribute something.

On the downside, it ends up feeling mostly frivolous. There’s really nothing here; no excellent drama to sink your teeth into, only the most tepid comedic bits you’ve seen a thousand times before, yawn-inducing dialogue, and a plot that wavers between serviceable and nonsensical, but never better. When it comes to dramatic elements that I personally care about, which are variable but can be broadly reduced to “it would be nice to have a good story,” it felt like many other recent Netflix dramas have felt—that, by and large, nobody really gave a shit.

Which brings us back to the age-old debate that seems to come up so much recently: isn’t it okay to just have a show that’s fun, dude?

Yes! And this show is fun. But at a certain point, when all you’re getting seems to be the bubble gum version of television, fun can start to seem very hollow. “Actually,” you begin to think, “I might hate fun.”

To point: We are now nearing the 600th word of this review, and I can’t really think of anything else to say about the actual show. I could describe the plot to you some more—at one point, they fight men in dinosaur costumes—but if you have any exposure to modern TV, you already know exactly what this show is, and you probably already know if you would like it. Once I say, “well-made action show, cliche, propulsive, zero ambition,” we’re on the same page. And it partly feels unfair to blame this show in particular for the larger cultural trend of everything starting to look and sound the same. And the irony here is that while The Brothers Sun boasts some badly needed diversity in casting, the scope of its aspirations could not be more mainstream, or dare I say “vanilla.” We live in a world where this might get a second season, but Giri/Haji was canceled, and that’s too bad.

In any case, I don’t regret the few hours I spent watching The Brothers Sun, and you won’t either, if this is your kind of thing. If it’s immediately forgettable, so be it—blame consumer culture, blame the world, blame whoever, but don’t blame the show. It was never trying to be special, even though I wish it had. 

The Brothers Sun is now streaming on Netflix. 

Shane Ryan is a writer and editor. You can find more of his writing and podcasting at Apocalypse Sports, and follow him on Twitter here .

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.