Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

The eponymous protagonist of Jim Jarmusch's 1999 film GHOST DOG is an African-American hitman (Forest Whitaker) working for an Italian mafia in New Jersey and living according to the Hagakure, Japan's samurai code. After a hit goes wrong through no fault of the assassin's own, his mafia liaison Louie (John Tormey) is sympathetic, but explains that his superiors now want Ghost Dog dead. The film follows Ghost Dog's revenge and depicts a clash between two ancient tribes that both seem out of date in this modern world: Ghost Dog's samurai code and Italian mafia ideas of loyalty.

Jarmusch has always been open about the fact that he soaks up a huge number of inspirations from earlier films, books, and music and then lets them reflect in his own work. Any cinephile will instantly recognize Jean-Pierre Melville's 1967 film Le Samouraï as the point of departure for GHOST DOG. In Meville's classic, a Parisian hired assassin lives according to a strict code. But Melville didn't really know much about Japan, and even the quotation from a samurai text at the beginning of his film was just made up by Meville himself. Jarmusch seems to have decided, "OK, I'll show you a hired-assassin film that's really rooted in the code of the Samurai". Forest Whitaker quotes from Hagakure throughout the film, and there are also references to the work of Akira Kurosawa.

But GHOST DOG is not a remake, and Jarmusch takes the basic premise in a very individual direction. There's a lot of humour here, something missing from the serious Melville inspiration. In casting for the mafia dons, Jarmusch chose faces as brutal and distinctive as Dick Tracy's rogues gallery: Henry Silva as the don, and Cliff Gorman and Gene Ruffini as his righthand men. But Jarmusch then gives them the occasional zany line that cracks that chilling façade. Isaach de Bankole plays a supporting role as a French-speaking Haitian immigrant and Ghost Dog's best friend, a role that is pure comic relief because the man does...

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)

Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Honestly, I've never been a huge fan of Jim Jarmusch; he never fully captured my attention. But Ghost Dog I enjoyed immensely, primarily because Forest Whitaker did an amazing job of encapsulating the feeling of a zen martial artist. My own Buddhist training began in a Karate class with a teacher who was himself brought up in Japanese monastery training, authentic in other words. So I know what that discipline looks like, what that stillness costs, and Whitaker gets it right. He moves through the world with the economy and precision of someone who has internalized the code completely.

The samurai angle, with passages from the Hagakure woven throughout, was deeply attractive to me. The film takes bushido seriously, not as exotic decoration but as a lived philosophy of service, loyalty, and acceptance of death. And the fact that Ghost Dog is invisible at night, moving like a ninja through the urban landscape, was a level up: The film understands that a warrior can move through the world without disturbing it.

Outside that, the RZA soundtrack was fantastic, appropriate and completely enjoyable. The score never overwhelms; it supports the meditative quality of Ghost Dog's existence while giving the film a contemporary edge. I loved the bit with Whitaker and the Haitian ice cream man being good friends when neither understood the other's language. That was a beautiful touch, a quiet argument that connection transcends words, that friendship can exist in gestures and presence alone.

As usual with Jarmusch, there's something that pulls me from suspension of disbelief. In this case, the "mafia" was too much like caricature. I have been close to some old mafia. They have great senses of humor, are intelligent, and real; not caricatures. Jarmusch's mobsters feel like they wandered in from a parody, bumbling and cartoonish in a way that undermines the gravity of Ghost Dog's world. It's a sha...