Back in middle school, a friend of mine periodically asked his Magic 8 Ball, “Is my sister radioactive?” I’m pretty sure he didn’t do it out of concern. Sibling rivalry is nothing new to me; my problem was with which sibling to rival as I have four. And for all brothers and sisters who have ever taunted, teased, humiliated, dissed, embarrassed, or just plain taken a sibling for granted because you could, I give you your champion, Shi Fen (Yuchang Peng), dick of dicks. This kid would happy sell his sister down the river for some snack food. Watch him torment Shi Miao (Zifeng Zhang) so much that she wastes a magic birthday wish on Shi Fen not being her brother.
It’s not just that Shi Fen is a relationship abuser: stealing his sister’s food, tying her hair to her bedpost while she sleeps, reading her diary and announcing the results — this guy is reason enough for China’s outdated sibling limitation laws — he also has a bizarre reliance on sis getting him out of jams. Shi Fen’s antics are not limited to bullying; he’s a trouble-maker in general: we discover this when the kid is brought to the principal’s office for, get this, snipping the names off a graded standardized test and selling the top scores to the highest bidder. Shi Miao actually covers for him in front of the school authorities … um … you do realize at this point you’re an enabler, right? A lot of Shi Fen’s shi fun is about money – he regularly robs his sister’s piggy bank, embraces dicey money-making schemes, but he saves his most ingenious pragmatism towards gaming the prize-inside-a-bag-of-chips racket. That kid will literally spend hours making store owners show him every last bag of Chinese Cheetos in the market while playing chip whisperer in order to collect a prize game token. I digress, the thesis is about how this kid is a dick –specifically- to his sister.
All done with a quixotic Alfred E. Neuman smile, Shi Fen happily converts Shi Maio’s aspirations to misery. Meanwhile, their parents are on the brink of divorce. That ain’t good. I daresay, Shi Maio’s isolation will feel familiar to a number of children who feel let down by family. So at the very moment when Miao’s camel required traction, she wished away her brother … only to discover he’s now her best friend’s brother … and now their parents are getting a divorce. It bugs me that alternative universe Shi Fen’s parents are also divorcing. It makes me believe right off that children are the cause of their parents’ divorces and that Shi Fen is a cause by himself. As a parent I find either of those messages appalling. I know this isn’t what Go Brother! intended to do, but, comrades, this is what you chose to put on film.
You won’t believe this, but Shi Fen is actually a good boy. Yeah, I don’t believe it, either. Go Brother! is one of those films in which many details have been deliberately withheld so you can form the wrong opinion, like finding out the Uber driver blasting Mötley Crüe at 4 a.m. was doing so to frighten off burglars. The most notable case in recent fiction is Professor Snape in the world of Harry Potter. And, of course, I still think Professor Snape is a dick. Don’t care if he turned out to be good. Still a dick. There are six volumes worth of reasons for Harry to think 
Snape was a dick. All the bullying and sneering towards Harry, Ron, and Hermione while shamelessly supporting Harry’s biggest enemy? Dick. Similarly, this is how I feel about Go Brother! OK, you’ve given me some extenuating circumstances, movie, but, ummm, dick. Shi Fen’s egregiously selfish behavior cannot possibly be explained to 100% altruistic motives. That’s not how selfishness works. It took me until the final 30 minutes to think even a single good thing about the little creep and now I’m supposed to love him?
The lesson here is value your annoying sibs, cuz you just may need them when your own parents are getting a divorce. I dunno. If that’s the case, I think I’m happier with the Magic 8 Ball “Radioactive” route. Go Brother! is a cute and sporadically charming fantasy, but hardly a film to take seriously on any level.
♪That choad is wrong
Annoying beyond concern
You may ask why I care
Why I care
Cuz that dong
Bunks right next door to my room
He ain’t civil, he’s my brother♫
Not Rated, 115 Minutes
Director: Fen-fen Cheng
Writer: Magic 8 Ball?
Genre: Half-the-story film
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Love/hate siblings
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Only children
♪ Parody Inspired by “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”
