Ghost Dog, la voie du samouraï

Ghost Dog certainly is an intriguing film. It breaks some new ground for writer/director Jim Jarmusch, who usually creates simple, funny, and heartfelt black and white films with many underlying themes. Ghost Dog is one of his few color films, and it is also the most out of character picture he has made to date. Instead of a slow-paced comedic drama, Ghost Dog is a slow-paced bloody crime film.

The plot deals with Ghost Dog (Whitaker), an expert mafia assassin living in present-day New York City who lives his life according to the ancient code of the Samurai.

Jarmusch somewhat reverses what Akira Kurosawa did in Throne of Blood by bringing Eastern culture to a Western setting. It's a rather fascinating idea, but I can't help but feel that Jarmusch kind of falls into a trap he teeters on almost constantly in his films: while he's so busy creating a slow, brooding atmosphere and interweaving subtle underlying themes, he occasionally forgets that this is still a movie. He still needs to keep the audience entertained. Ghost Dog sometimes moves so slowly that one becomes a little bit bored and anxious.

Another thing that doesn't work particularly well in Ghost Dog are Jarmusch's signature scenes of off-beat humor that often just come completely out of nowhere. They usually work quite well, such as Iggy Pop's and Billy Bob Thornton's blackly funny scene in Dead Man, but they just feel awkward here. E.g., Jarmusch develops a very peculiar group of gangsters in Ghost Dog, gangsters who think they're straight out of GoodFellas but are so incompetent that they can't even pay their rent nor figure out who they're trying to "whack". This is often quite amusing, but sometimes Jarmusch just goes over the top, such as when he makes one of the fifty-something Italian gangsters begin going on about how he loves rap and even start rapping his favorite verses right in the middle of a meeting of criminals. It's just uncomfortable.

Still, there's plenty to like here, and there are quite a few homages for avid film-lovers to spot, such as a cool little nod to the butterfly scene in Seijun Suzuki's Branded To Kill. Also, the acting is often spot-on. Forest Whitaker is absolutely perfect as Ghost Dog - detached, subtle, nuanced, and, most importantly, human.

Still, I hesitate to recommend this film. Jim Jarmusch is most definitely an acquired taste, but even his fans may find their patience tried during Ghost Dog.

Jim Jarmusch is one of the few filmmakers in Hollywood able to make bodies of work that are challenging, thoughtful, and with a distinctive voice. Like the Coen Brothers, it's hard to make his films accessible to the public like many other films at the cineplexes, and that's part of the joy in watching a film such as Ghost Dog. It's such a strange kind of story, but it's a story that extremely well crafted, even when some of the characters aren't developed enough past a certain point. While I can't really say that it's a great film, there are plenty of great things about it.

Such as a pulsing, rhythmically engaging soundtrack (I'm not a big fan of rap and hip-hop, but the artists on here are better than expected) with the RZA behind the seat. Delicate, finite cinematography by Robby Mueller (who's other superb collaboration with Jarmusch was on Down By Law). A performance from Forrest Whitaker, as the dedicated, un-hinged-from reality 'samurai' known as Ghost Dog, which ranks among his best and shows in plain sight that he can carry an action film with patience and cool. And the film also carries a fine sense of humor to many scenes - the fact that these gangsters (one of which Dog's boss) watch more cartoons than take care of business is as funny as the way they interact sometimes. While it tends to streak on parody, in the characters there's still the fascinating Jarmusch has in mixing the cultures.

It's a hard film to classify, for even though it's a martial-arts movie, the only sight of a sword is used for practice and not a blood-bath in Kill Bill. It's a gangster movie, but every five minutes or so there's philosophical notes on the way of the samurai that seems more in place in a (good, thematically engaging) art film than a (good, shoot-em-up) Hollywood actioner. It's a movie about urban-life, yet the only signs of Urbana are shown from a distance, where the only two who will talk to Ghost Dog are a Haitian ice cream guy (who provides a wonderfully weird scene on the roof with Ghost Dog), and a little girl who likes to read. But it's this mixture that can keep a viewer on his or her toes, especially once you realize the psychological state of the lead as much as his spiritual state.

Parts of the film might turn off one group, but the other parts of the film might keep the same group enthralled. In fact, it's as interesting a comparison to be made to Kill Bill (itself a hybrid) as it is in the spiritual and stylistic parent, Le Samourai by Melville. Like those films, at the least, Jarmusch's film asks to be looked at more than once...Anyway, three cheers for Garry "Nobody" Farmer!

Ghost Dog is an excellent ode to Hip-Hop and samurai movies, molded into a framework of European film making. It is a meditation on philosophy, literature, the banality of violence, and on miscommunication. As such, this is a great movie with a strong independent feel to it. The story is very simple. A man (Forest Whitaker) who was once saved by a mobster, lives a life dedicated to perfection of the martial arts guided by the Hagakure, the code of the samurai (Hagakure roughly means "Hidden Leaves" or "Hidden By Leaves" and was written by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, a samurai who was denied seppuku and lived out his life as a buddhist monk, which is when he wrote his book). Whitaker is a hitman with only one employer (the geriatric mobster who saved him) and can only be contacted by carrier pigeon. When a hit turns bad, he is forced to fight off the mobster and his fellow geriatric "made men" (who are less Al Pacino in The Godfather, than Al Pacino in Donnie Brasco). They personify the same dying way of life that Tsunetomo represented when he wrote his book, which is as much an obituary to a dying ethic, as the samurai class needed to adapt itself even during the Tokugawa shogunate (let alone after the Meiji Restoration in the 19th century).

If you're looking for a fast action movie with lots of hyperrealistic blood and guts, you will be disappointed.

However, if you are interested in the interaction of movies and literature, violence and miscommunication, honor and philosophy, and culture clashes (not in the least the director's slow moving European style superimposed on one of the world's fastest cities, New York), this is a wonderfully set out masterpiece. At turns hilarious, camp, profound, I found the action actually pretty good. In this movie, it isn't about luck or superfast guns, but it is the person who is most prepared to kill who wins.

Forest Whitaker, Camille Winbush, John Tormey and the rest of the cast give performances that range from very nice to great.

"Ghost Dog" (Forrest Whitaker) is a hit man who lives by the code of the Samurai. He is on retainer to Louie, and has done 12 hits for the mob these past four years. Their relationship started when Louie saved Ghost Dog's life several years before, and now Ghost Dog is indebted to him, according to his code.

Louie tells Ghost Dog to kill a gangster, Handsome Frank, who is sleeping with the daughter of local mafia boss Vargo. Louie has been told that the daughter, Louise, has left the house, but she is still there when Ghost Dog does the hit. In fact, she sees the hit happen. Ghost Dog does not kill her, because the code of the Samurai is against killing noncombatants.

Now the mob says that Ghost Dog must die because of what Louise saw, and it seems they aren't too happy with Louie either. And so the war begins. There is comedy as the mob is none too bright and bungles quite a bit as they go after Ghost Dog, while Ghost Dog is a literate well read fellow who is besting them at every turn in a kind of Roadrunner/Wiley Coyote dynamic. But at the end of the day both groups are living by antiquated codes that nobody else is living by, and complications ensue as a result.

There is a deleted scene in the Criterion release that explains some things not revealed in the film. I'd say watch that to get an inkling of why exactly these mobsters are trying to kill a guy who did exactly what they told him to do, when any error in logistics - the location of Louise - falls on them. My first thought was that because the mob thinks of women as delicate flowers, that allowing Louise to see such violence meant that Ghost Dog must die. It's actually something much more modern and practical if you think about it. And this film is something that does get you thinking.

Lots of the scenes just feel like loosely interconnected vignettes instead of a cohesive story, but it's a character study first and foremost and Whittaker's portrayal of the titular character carries the film. He's simultaneously stoic, kind, principled and naive, never questioning the futility of following a code of honor that his chosen master doesn't himself follow.

I often get annoyed at Criterion - which put this out on Blu a few years back - for picking such obscure films to preserve and release. And then I see them, and I am so thankful that they introduced me to them. I'd say "Cure" also belongs to this group.

This is a really cool movie.I saw it yesterday and want to see it again. Actor Forest Whitaker is quite impressing in this movie.He has a calm atmosphere over him,he does not speak much,but those kind of roles are often the hardest ones.Rest of cast is well chosen. Many of the scenes is highly stylized(sort of John Woo,just lesser noise) and the dialogue is very funny at times.Especially Louie`s meeting with his bosses is a standout. Even the music`s good,by rap group RZA.It fits the personality and actions of Ghost Dog perfectly(his sword training on roof is a highlight). So,let me clear something.This is NOT for everyone.It is cool,stylish and funny.But,unfortunately,not very exciting. It`s a special movie,japanese samurai mixed with rap and mafia.What do we get with this? I don`t really know.It`s not in any genre. Just watch it,you`ll be rewarded.

Rating- 9/10