How Costume Designer Vera Chow Brought Fashion to Action in Netflix’s ‘The Brothers Sun’
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Michelle Yeoh has been a force in the film industry and Hollywood for decades. Following her 2023 Oscar win for Best Actress in a Leading Role for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the veteran actress’ latest project is a Netflix TV series with plenty of action.
“The Brothers Sun,” which premiered on Netflix on Jan. 4, tells the story of the head of a Taiwanese triad who is shot by an assassin, leading his eldest son, Charles, to go to Los Angeles to protect his mother, played by Yeoh, and younger brother, played by Sam Li. While the series offers action and fight scenes in every episode, it also has no shortage of fashion and style moments.
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The person behind costuming the dark comedy action series is Vera Chow, who is known for her work on “Big Fan,” “Marco Polo” and the final two seasons of “The Walking Dead.”
One of Chow’s goals when costuming the show was to make sure it defied Asian stereotypes.
“When I first got the script, I thought about how every time I see a Yakuza type film there’s this through line where they all dress the same,” Chow said. “I purposefully did not do any research into Western interpretations of Asian gangster films. I grew up in Asia, so it gave me a different understanding of how to approach this. I specifically researched movies from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Among Asian gangsters, there are differences in how they dress based on rank and nuances as to how they dressed based on what faction they belong to. Even the jewelry, where gangsters can tell you what faction they are from or what religion they belong to.”
The character Charles, played by Justin Chien, one of the leading male roles in the show, required much specificity in his wardrobe. As the son of a triad boss, he needed an elevated look that indicated a level of wealth and privilege. But given the numerous amount of action and fight scenes Charles has, the looks also needed stunt-level versatility.
“I’ve spent a lot of my career in stunt-heavy shows, which was a good thing for me going into this project,” Chow said. “Looking at Charles as a character, he is supposed to come up as the kind of Asian person whose wealthy parents sent them to a prestigious private school abroad, and when you immediately look at him, you know he comes from a family with the means to do that. Charles wears more understated colors, and I put him in a lot of custom suits, and blazers that would have Asian embroidery. For some of his custom suits, I designed them with couch fabric. I took a bi-cultural approach to Charles’ clothes reflecting how he’s from Taiwan but now in Los Angeles.”
Chow said like many other costume designers, she approaches crafting a wardrobe for a show like she’s a psychologist: the clothing pieces reflect the emotional state and mindset of the character.
One of the ways this is reflected is within the title characters of the show, one being Charles, and the other being his brother Bruce, played by Sam Li. The further along the series got, the more Chow worked on blending their color palettes, with Charles’ clothes getting more casual and Bruce’s clothes becoming more elevated as the characters’ traits begin to influence each other. Chow said she chose to do this to signify unity and the brothers coming to work together.
Yeoh’s character, Mama Sun, goes through an evolution as well throughout the series, both style-wise and in terms of character development.
“Every look Mama Sun had, from her nurse’s scrubs to her outfits when she’s with her family in Taiwan, reflected how being a mother was the most important thing to her,” Chow said. “She’s introduced in the nurse’s uniform, and the scrubs are meant to be ambiguous, indicating she could be many varieties of a working class person. However, you see even when she’s in her casual clothes she has the typical San Gabriel Valley auntie look with the cardigans and elastic waistband pants. Mama Sun wants to blend in, but she still always has an air of elegance about her. We did keep a baseline so as her look becomes more elevated, the transition isn’t too dramatic.”
For the overall cast, Chow focused heavily on including as many Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander designers as possible. Some of the brands and labels she pulled from included Vivian Chan, Sundae School, Hungry Sloth, Yanyan Knits and Ren.
Symbolism came through with subtle choices like Mama Sun wearing an all-white ensemble before a mass shootout fight scene where there were casualties. White is traditionally a funeral color in Chinese culture, hinting at what’s to come. Jade jewelry was also an indicator of class and rank among the gangs and their different factions. Of all the costuming choices that went into the show, the Chinese opera masks for some of the gangsters were one of Chow’s biggest labors of love, as they were all made by hand.
“The Brothers Sun” stars Michelle Yeoh, Justin Chien, Sam Li, Highdee Kuan, Alice Hewkin and Madison Hu. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
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