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.

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.

Jim Jarmusch isn't exactly a household name when it comes to Hollywood directors. I don't know about other people, but personally I had heard of his name before, but certainly couldn't name any of his movies. Now that has changed. Since I've seen "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" I'll try to see at least a couple of his other movies as well, because I really liked this one.

"Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" is a quite unique movie. It tells the story of an African-American mafia hit-man in New York who lives by the rules of the Samurai, in simplicity and alone with his pigeons, who calls himself Ghost Dog and who is always faithful to his master, a local mobster who has saved his life several years ago. When the daughter of the local mob boss witnesses one of Ghost Dog's hits, he must die himself. The first victims are his birds and in response, Ghost Dog goes right at his attackers. He is lethal, but does not want to harm his master or the young woman. And while his life is in constant danger, the only people he ever has contact with are a little girl, with whom he discusses books, and a Haitian ice cream man who only speaks French and doesn't understand a word of what Ghost Dog tells him.

I guess the best way to categorize this movie is to call it a mix of the movie "Léon", the Samurai code and hip-hop culture. Normally you would think that such a mix could never work, but this time it does. I admit that it certainly isn't a normal mix, but Jarmusch avoids the traps that would make this original and daring movie a complete waste of time and which would turn it into one unbelievable and unrealistic mess. I know it sounds strange, how can a movie that combines Italian, Japanese and hip-hop culture into one ever become one solid movie? Don't ask me, I don't even know how he came up with the idea, but it works and that's all that matters.

This movie has several strong points. One is the way everything is told and shown, which make this a sober, but powerful movie. Especially with the quotes that are taken from the Way of the Samurai and that are voiced by Forest Whitaker, a solid base is formed. This helps you to understand why the man does what he does, why he lives his life like that and why he will always respect his master. If this hadn't been in the movie, I would probably not have liked it a bit. The other strong point is the acting. The mobsters look a bit stereotypical, but are well portrayed by people like Cliff Gorman, John Tormey, Richard Portnow,... but the best performance definitely comes from Forest Whitaker. Normally Whitaker plays the role of a good guy, like for instance Jody in "The Crying Game" or Captain Ramey in "Phone Boot" and it has to be said, he really has some talent for that kind of roles. But, as he proves with this movie, he is capable of a lot more. He plays the role of the samurai hit man, doesn't look like he's fit for that role at all (at least, I would never think of him when it comes to that role), but does it really very well.

As a conclusion I would like to add that the sound track is also very nice. Normally I'm not too much a fan of hip hop in the movies, although I can appreciate it as a form of music on itself, but this time it really works. Add to this some nice acting, a cool and well-written story, some funny moments (like for instance a rapping mobster) and what you'll get is a movie that is fun and interesting to watch. I give it an 8/10.

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!

This is one of the strangest, and most likable movies I have ever seen....and I have seen a lot, believe me.

Scene after scene was bizarre. I watched an amazement on the first viewing, chuckling here and there. By the third viewing, I just laughing out loud throughout much of it. The dark, subtle humor in here is as good as I've ever seen on film....even though it may be classified more of a gangster film than a comedy.

The humor mainly involved the gangsters, who were a bunch of old Mafia men. A mob never looked this pathetic but they were characters. It was especially fun to see Henry Silva again, a man who used to be an effective villain back on a lot of TV shows in the 1960s. He didn't say much in this movie but the looks on his face were priceless. The funniest guy, at least to me, was the mobster who sang and danced to rap music!

The byplay between "Ghost Dog," the hero of the movie played wonderfully by Forest Whitaker, and the ice cream man, who only spoke French, also was fun and entertaining.

Almost every character in here was a strange, led by Whitaker who plays a modern-day hit-man who lives by the code of the ancient Samurai warriors. He also trains and communicates through carrier pigeons. Hey, I said this was a bizarre movie!

The violence was no-nonsense, however, nothing played for laughs and unlike Rambo-mentality, people who were shot at were hit and usually killed right away.

Along the way on this strange tale was a lesson or two on loyalty, racism, philosophies, kindness, communication, etc. How much of this you take seriously, and how much as a gag, is up to you, I guess. The more I watch this, the more I see it as clever put-on comedy....yet sad. It's not to easy to describe but you wind up getting involved with these odd people.

The movie changes rapidly as Whitaker does in this story. One minute he is a brutally bear-like hit-man and the next minute, the gentlest of souls.

A very unique film. The title looks a bit stupid and one you would easily dismiss as moronic, but it is far from it. Great entertainment.