Movies - Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

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	Movies - Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a 1999 film directed by Jim Jarmusch. It takes place in Jersey City, New Jersey in the present day United States.

In the film Forest Whitaker plays an African American hitman working for the Mafia, named Ghost Dog, who follows the ancient code of the samurai as described in Yamamoto Tsunetomo's book, Hagakure.

Ghost Dog sees himself as a retainer of Louie (John Tormey), a local mobster, who Ghost Dog believes saved his life years ago. When Ghost Dog kills the man sleeping with the mafia boss's daughter in the presence of the girl, the mafia (small-time, cartoon-watching mobsters) decide to get rid of him. Not knowing anything about him but that he communicates by carrier pigeon, they start by tracing all pigeon-keeping loners, in the end finding his cabin atop a building, and killing his pigeons, after which Ghost Dog realizes he is forced to kill them, or otherwise they will kill him and his master.

During the day, Ghost Dog takes cares of his pigeons and frequently visits the park to see his best friend, a Haitian ice cream salesman named Raymond (Isaach De Bankolé) who speaks only French. Ghost Dog doesn't understand French and Raymond doesn't understand English, but the two seem to understand each other. One of the recurring events in the film is a running gag when Ghost Dog and Raymond talk. One of them says something and the other, having not understood a word, repeats it in his own language. Another recurring theme is that Ghost Dog steals several vehicles using an electronic device to open electronic locks, once in the car he places a CD in to the CD Changer the same way each time.

Ghost Dog also makes friends with a little girl named Pearline (Camille Winbush) to whom he lends a book titled Rashomon which gets Pearline interested in ancient Japan. Paralleling a major theme of Rashomon, Louie and Ghost Dog have different accounts of the circumstances of their meeting. In Louie's flashback, we see him shoot Ghost Dog's attacker in self defense. In Ghost Dog's flashback, Louie shoots the attacker just as the attacker is about to shoot Ghost Dog.

In the end Ghost Dog succeeds in killing the mobsters, sparing only his "master" Louie, to whom he feels he owes his life. Louie then kills Ghost Dog in the final showdown. Immediately afterwards, Pearline picks up the silenced pistol that Ghost Dog used throughout the film and cast aside at his death, aiming it towards Louie and pulling the trigger of the empty gun. In the denouement, she is shown reading his prized copy of the Hagakure, and the movie closes with a voiceover of Pearline reading the Hagakure. This symbolises her assumption of the mantle of bushido that Ghost Dog left behind.

The movie stresses the conflict between two codes of conduct and "ancient tribes", that of the (aging) mobsters (incapable of paying the rent of their meeting place) and that of the samurai, chosen by Ghost Dog. There is a certain sense of inevitability in the movie, and also of honor, illustrated by Ghost Dog killing two poachers he encounters on the road with a dead bear (the black bear is imagery associated throughout the movie with Ghost Dog himself).

Between each act, a quotation from Hagakure is screened and read by Ghost Dog.

Wu-Tang Clan's RZA has a small role in the movie, playing another 'street samurai.' As Ghost Dog and RZA's (nameless) character meet on the street, both him and Ghost Dog bow in a bushido-style greeting.

:RZA: "Ghost Dog, power and equality." :Ghost Dog: "See and hear everything."

After the greeting they both pass each other and continue their ways.

Soundtrack

The film's score and soundtrack is produced by the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA. This film may be considered his breakthrough work in movie scoring, after which he moved on to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill franchise, Blade: Trinity, and other movies.

Several North American and Japanese versions of the soundtrack album have been released, each with a slightly different set of tracks.

Scenes in the film play partial songs not appearing in the released soundtrack albums, including From Then Till Now performed by Killah Priest, Armagideon Time performed by Willie Williams, Nuba One performed by Andrew Cyrille and Jimmy Lyons, and Cold Lampin With Flavor performed by Flavor Flav.

Literature referenced in the film

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