Review: Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai.

Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai is a crime drama directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars Forest Whitaker along with John Tormey, Isaach de Bankole, Henry Silva, Cliff Gorman, and Camille Winbush.

The movie revolves around the title character, Ghost Dog, a bird-loving samurai-esque hitman working for a weak mafia as he follows the samurai code written down in the book, Hagakure.

Ghost Dog is a very unique film, despite the absurdity of it's premise and the characters, it all just makes sense. It's a surprisingly deep film, it's a film about violence, dying traditions, blending cultures, all themes that have been analyzed to death.

One of, if not my, favorite thing about the film is how calm it is throughout. It's tranquil if not outright hypnotic, it's a very relaxing movie despite all the violence that goes on in it, it never becomes tense or high energy at any point in the film. It stays at one pace and never changes, and I love that. I took a handful of breaks throughout the time I spent watching and when I would come back and I watched, truly watched it, 15-30 minutes would just fly by in what felt like 5 minutes.

I don't know if this is intentional, but with how "calm" each kill performed in this film is I more or less interpreted it as how detached Ghost Dog is from his life as a hitman. We see this film primarily through his perspective, and it's clear that he's desensitized to it all.

And I find Ghost Dog to be an incredible character, I'm not gonna be one of those people who make him out to be a hero, he's not, he's a cold-blooded delusional killer. But I love how this film adds all this depth to him. He has a meaning behind every action he does, he has a passage taken out of the Hagakure to both foreshadow and explain what he will do next. 

His friendship with Raymond is, in my opinion, the best part of his character. Despite being separated by language, they still bond over ice cream, walk around and talk with each other despite not knowing what the other is saying, it's a true friendship and I do fully believe they are best friends, because they understand each other.

And my love for Ghost Dog is only backed up by all the samurai quirks he has to his character. He twirls his gun around like he's putting a katana in its sheath, he refers to himself as a retainer, he trains often on his rooftop with swords, a machete, his hands, and even meditates, and he lives by this code like his life depends on it because it gives him purpose.

And I can respect that, we all need a reason to keep going regardless of how little sense it makes, it doesn't need to make sense to others or even to you, but if it keeps you going it keeps you going.

I really appreciated the homages to other films too, I've never seen Branded to Kill, but I've seen Le Samourai. Did I like Le Samourai? No, I didn't. But did I like the references to the film throughout Ghost Dog? Absolutely. The magic car unlocker, the ending, the whole samurai thing in general. I liked it.

And lastly, I love the overall absurdity of the film. Between the comically weak mafia who are both not respected and broken in more ways than just finance, the split viewed perspective on how Louie saved Ghost Dog's life, the desensitized feel to the film in general, and the Forest Whitaker narrated quotes from the Hagakure sprinkled throughout the film, it all ties this film together and I think if you removed even one scene from this movie the film fails as there is meaning in most if not all scenes.

I personally recommend this film to anyone with two hours to spare, it's a very profound movie, and I wanna read the Hagakure now. I would also recommend checking out Kitano's Violent Cop, it's not a great film but it has a similar feeling of detachedness I found myself thinking about as I watched Ghost Dog.

That's all for now. Goodbye.