The Brothers Sun follows a ruthless killer from a legendary crime family in Taipei, Taiwan, who flies to LA to protect his mother and naive younger brother from mysterious assassins. The series is currently streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
The Brothers Sun begins in Taipei, Taiwan, where the head of the Triad Jade Dragons is attacked by mysterious assassins.
As he falls into a coma, his son and the most feared Jade Dragons member, Charles “Chairleg” Sun, goes to LA to save his mother and younger brother from the other Triad who he thinks is behind the attack.
Bruce wakes up to a whole new world where his family has been a criminal empire and mysterious assassins are now hunting him and his mother.
Bruce, Charles, and Eileen rise to the challenges, however, and put up a great fight against their enemies.
In the process, they end up changing the entire Taiwanese criminal underworld, as The Brothers Sun comes to an end.
Ending explained:
The Boxers
The Boxers is a mysterious organization formed to push back against the Triads after they lost their ways and became the very suppressors they were originally supposed to rebel against.
Their mission is to save Chinese people and to protect them, they need to cut off the heads of the Triads.
They plan on opening up community centers all across the world to provide shelter to their people, especially the kids orphaned by the crimes and conflicts of the Triads.
The Boxers attack Charles to draw his father, the Big Sun, out of hiding and then shoot him.
He falls into a coma but it’s later revealed that he’s only faking it and biding his time while the other Triads contend with the Boxers.
Eileen’s gambit
His wife, Eileen, manages to play several steps ahead of the Boxers and dupe them into sending their finest assassins to Taipei, to kill the remaining six Triad heads.
She informs the heads before the attacks and in doing so, deprives the Boxers of their finest assassins and curries a favor from the Triad heads.
She convinces them to come to LA for a meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to elect a new Dragon Head, i.e., the supreme leader of all of the Triads.
She intends to come out of the shadows, stop being Big Sun’s insurance policy, and become the Dragon Head.
By the end of The Brothers Sun season 1, she is not the Dragon Head but is pretty much the head of Jade Dragons.
The Brothers Sun vs. the Big Sun
The Big Sun wakes up from his fake coma and comes to LA, to turn the tables on Eileen and push Charles to be the new Dragon Head.
At the meeting, though, she manages to gain the confidence of the Triads to elect her as the supreme leader.
Due to the delays caused by Frank Ma, the Boxers, and the FBI end up attacking the meeting. Most other Triads are arrested or killed.
Big Sun orders Charles to go kill Bruce in front of his mother, for betraying him. Charles can’t do it and Bruce and Eileen help him see his father for who he is.
Charles tells his father he is leaving the life of crime, and staying in LA with his mother and brother.
However, Big Sun sends Xing to kill Eileen and Bruce. Eileen kills Xing.
Charles is arrested for open firing in public, and so Bruce asks him the location of their father to go kill him.
Freedom from the Triads
Bruce shoots Big Sun in the stomach, avoiding vital organs. His father is admitted to the hospital and arrested.
Eileen, dressed up as a nurse, injects him with insulin so he remains weak and keeps suffering.
Eileen is then free and she decides to go back to Taipei to lead the Jade Dragons.
She wants to reshape the organization and make it more streamlined and more legitimate.
Charles asks to accompany her, but she tells him to pursue a new life and dream here.
He bakes for a while and enjoys it, but ultimately accompanies her to Taipei, where he’ll get to know her more and help her take care of the operations.
Two-face Grace
Grace is a classmate of Bruce who is into him and has a great chemistry with him. She shares many traits with him and likes his company.
She turns out to be a member of the Boxers, though, and has been working undercover to get to Eileen, because she knows the identities of the Ghosts — the heads of the Triads.
Her organization has been hunting the Triads to protect the Chinese people from crime, conflict, and bloodshed.
Her parents were illegal migrants who were smuggled into the US by traffickers, and forced to work in Chinese restaurants.
When her father pushed back for freedom, he was killed by the Triads in front of everyone.
This is why Grace is that much more committed to the cause of the Boxers.
During the meeting of the Triads, she and other members attack but she is killed by June, who avenges her sister May’s death, which was at the hands of the Boxers.
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