Live by the code. Die by the code.
A Black hitman who models after the samurai of old finds himself targeted for death by the mob.
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Character
Contemplative, meticulous, prestige and grave.
- contemplativerelentless
- rawmeticulous
- unpretentiousprestige
- gravecomic
- character-ledplot-driven
Who loves it, who doesn't
19 profiled raters. Loved most by The Prestige Hunters; disliked most by The Provocateurs.
Where do you stand?
Answer first; then see how everyone, and your circle, split.
“Is this Jim Jarmusch's best work?”
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“Is the polish hiding a lack of heart?”
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“Is the slow pace a feature rather than a flaw?”
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A yes-or-no question, answered from what people wrote here, on TMDB and on Wikipedia. Never made up.
Reviews
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- badelfon TMDB · Apr 20268/10
**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 ove
Read the whole review on TMDB - CRCulveron TMDB · Jun 20187/10
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'
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Cast
- Forest WhitakerGhost Dog
- John TormeyLouie
- Cliff GormanSonny Valerio
- Frank MinucciBig Angie
- Richard PortnowHandsome Frank
- Tricia VesseyLouise Vargo
- Henry SilvaRay Vargo
- Gene RuffiniOld Consigliere
- Frank AdonisValerio's Bodyguard
- Victor ArgoVinny
Crew
- Jim JarmuschDirector
- Jim JarmuschWriter
- Robby MüllerDirector of Photography
- RZAOriginal Music Composer
- Jay RabinowitzEditor
- Richard GuayProducer
- Jim JarmuschProducer
Where to watch
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