--- title: 'The Brothers Sun' Review: Michelle Yeoh Steals the Show description: Netflix's crime-family action dramedy is elevated by a steely and complex performance from the 'Everything Everywhere' Oscar winner. canonical: https://time.com/6551854/the-brothers-sun-review/ author: Judy Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-01-04T08:01:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:52:44.761Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Michelle Yeoh Steals the Show in Netflix's 'Brothers Sun' og:description: The crime-family action dramedy is elevated by a steely, complex performance from the iconic Oscar winner og:url: https://time.com/6551854/the-brothers-sun-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f9ed058fcf6b5fc/698a439386f68e933f6f319f/The_Brothers_Sun_n_S1_E1_00_44_12_06RC.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The_Brothers_Sun_n_S1_E1_00_44_12_06RC og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Michelle Yeoh Steals the Show in Netflix's 'Brothers Sun' twitter:description: The crime-family action dramedy is elevated by a steely, complex performance from the iconic Oscar winner twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f9ed058fcf6b5fc/698a439386f68e933f6f319f/The_Brothers_Sun_n_S1_E1_00_44_12_06RC.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Michelle Yeoh Steals the Show in Netflix’s Crime-Family Action Dramedy _The Brothers Sun_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Jan 4, 2024 8:01 AM UTC  Michelle Yeoh in The Brothers Sun Michelle Yeoh in The Brothers SunNetflix  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Jan 4, 2024 8:01 AM UTC Sometime between age 40 and 50, when their male counterparts are still getting cast as superheroes and romantic leads, most women in Hollywood get shunted into that blandest of supporting roles: somebody’s mom. But [Michelle Yeoh](https://time.com/icon-of-the-year-2022-michelle-yeoh/), at 61, is not the typical star. Over the past several years, the [icon of Hong Kong martial-arts cinema](https://time.com/6239974/michelle-yeoh-2022-person-of-the-year-reception/) has reshaped a tired archetype in her own fierce image. From her delectably imperious performance as Eleanor Young in [_Crazy Rich Asians_](https://time.com/longform/crazy-rich-asians/)to her [Oscar-winning turn](https://time.com/6262204/michelle-yeoh-oscars-best-actress/) as the multiverse-traversing Evelyn Wang in [_Everything Everywhere All at Once_](https://time.com/6164962/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-review/), [Yeoh](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2022/6177759/michelle-yeoh/) isn’t just playing mothers; she’s reinventing the matriarch. Her character in _The Brothers Sun_, an eight-episode Netflix action dramedy from newcomer Byron Wu and frequent [Ryan Murphy](https://time.com/5667752/ryan-murphy-netflix/) collaborator Brad Falchuk, continues this wonderful tradition. At first glance, Yeoh’s Eileen Sun (a.k.a. Mama Sun) is a type we’ve seen many times before: the immigrant mother who invests all her energy in the success of the next generation. Eventually, however, her own ambitions—and her relentless drive to achieve them—come into focus. It is this arc, and this performance, rather than the more predictable trajectories of Mama’s titular sons, that make the series more than just a fun, if bloated, spectacle.  From left: Sam Song Li, Michelle Yeoh, and Justin Chien in The Brothers Sun Netflix _The Brothers Sun_ is a tale of two halves of one nuclear family living oceans apart. In a modest Los Angeles home, Eileen dotes on her son Bruce (Sam Song Li), a dorky medical student. What she doesn’t know is that he’s been using her tuition checks to finance his true passion: improv. What _he_ doesn’t know is that his estranged father, known in the Taiwanese criminal demimonde as Big Sun (Johnny Kou), runs a powerful [triad](https://time.com/4304515/china-taiwan-kenya-human-rights-crime-sovereignty-tsai-ing-wen/), the Jade Dragons—and has groomed a brother Bruce hasn’t seen since childhood, Charles (Justin Chien), to be a deadly assassin. Years ago, the Suns split up as a safety measure. Their mantra: “Protect the family.” Which is precisely what Charles is doing when he arrives in L.A. after witnessing an attempt on his father’s life—in Charles’ own luxurious Taipei apartment—that has left Big Sun in a coma. He’s here to act as Eileen’s bodyguard, though he and Bruce have yet to discover precisely what makes her so valuable to their dad. (Hint: It’s not necessarily because he loves her so much.) And because Charles’ enemies have been tracking his movements, it’s only a matter of time until he starts slaying attackers in his mom’s kitchen and the Suns have to explain to Bruce that he’s the scion of a criminal empire. Meanwhile, desperate to earn back his misappropriated tuition money, Bruce reluctantly agrees to help his dopey but loyal best bud TK (Joon Lee) sell drugs, as part of a small-time operation that would barely register on the Jade Dragons’ radar.  Sam Song Li, left, and Justin Chien in The Brothers Sun Michael Desmond—Netflix Fast-paced, funny, and packed with inventive scenes of hand-to-hand combat, the first episode is auspicious. Thanks to a talented cast and wild action sequences, the show remains fairly entertaining throughout. _The Brothers Sun_ is also smart about noting the contradictions inherent in Hollywood’s reductive Asian stereotypes—the “[model minority](https://time.com/5859206/anti-asian-racism-america/)” nerd vs. the cutthroat gangster vs. the so-called [tiger mom](https://time.com/1567/the-tiger-mom-superiority-complex/)—without congratulating itself for the trenchant critique. Yet in the second half of the season, as episodic runtimes swell to over an hour and the question of who is pursuing the Suns draws in law enforcement, vigilantes, and more, even the freshest fight choreography starts to seem as though it exists, in part, to pad out a story better suited to a feature. TV’s great family dramas—_The Sopranos_, _Succession_, _The Americans_—tend to earn their longevity by endowing each member of the central clan with a discrete, complex personality and motivations. But here, the Sun brothers’ relationship is mostly boilerplate odd-couple fare (although Charles’ movingly pure obsession with baking and the undertone of melancholy in Chien’s performance complicate a character who earned the nickname Chairleg, as a young teenager, by beating a slew of assassins to death with only the latter implement during a family dim sum brunch). Big Sun mostly looms in the background as a cartoon villain. We learn quirky details about the Suns’ various foot soldiers and rivals, without ever really getting to know them.  Michelle Yeoh and Justin Chien in The Brothers Sun Michael Desmond—Netflix The exception is Eileen. Wu and Falchuk assembled an all-Asian writers’ room, and the effects of that choice feel most palpable in a character who knows how to wield soft power within her world. She seems to know everyone in L.A.’s Taiwanese and Chinese American communities, from restaurant owners to mahjong-playing dowagers to “Auntie Cathy’s cousin-in-law, Grandma Joy” who recommends a crooked pet shop proprietor willing to feed dead bodies to animals. And she uses those connections to gather intelligence, quietly shoring up her own influence. It’s hard to imagine another actor inhabiting this character as fully or as shrewdly as Yeoh. Yes, she gets to fight—spectacularly. Of course it’s glorious, in a twisted way, when her sons get home one night to find her taking a power drill to a corpse. Yet what’s more remarkable is the seamlessness with which Yeoh, who radiates determination, unites two sides of a woman who is, at once, an overprotective mother and the secret weapon of Taipei’s predominant triad. When it comes to protecting the family, the men around her have nothing on the great Mama Sun. 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