Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai
by Jim Jarmusch
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DVD details
Actor: Cliff Gorman, Dennis Liu, Forest Whitaker, Henry Silva, John TormeyDirector: Jim Jarmusch
Brand: WHITAKER,FOREST
Cinematographer: Robby M?ller
Producer: Jim Jarmusch
Writer: Jim Jarmusch
Editor: Jay Rabinowitz
Producer: Diana Schmidt
Producer: Richard Guay
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-08-14
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai
DVD Review: not your usual samurai movie.
Summary: 4 Stars
If ur a Forest Whitacker fan you will enjoy this movie. I love it every time i see it. This guy embodies the philosophies of the ancient text hagakure. This movie is fun to watch not to be taken very seriously, but if you like martial arts movies you should like this too.DVD Review: Ghost Dog
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one amazing movie. Completely unique in my experience. The music adds to the action perfectly.
Don't by the RZA soundtrack CD because, although excellent, I think it is a complete rip-off.
DVD Review: Fun Samurai Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Have you ever wanted a fix of a good old fashioned samurai movie, but you've seen everything 100 times? This is a great film for someone who wants a change of pace, but loves all the old cheesy films.
The context of this film is built around the Hagakure and how those concepts have been internalized by the lead character. This particular samurai totes a gun for his modern work but in every way is very, very samurai. It's actually more samurai than a lot of films that have more swords.
I liked the mis-en-scene and the way the character's progress the story. I liked that there are no extra scenes; each scene has a story it tells that particularly informs the next. I will warn, however, that the film is built like a short story. This is not a film about layers and layers of people. The actors give the film a sense of depth, but as presented the film is backdrop to understand how the lead sees himself through the lens of Hagakure and a samurai mythology. In that way, the characters are frequently caricatures, but they're fun to watch.
The writer and director gives us some funny if also corny moments that stand out and make it one of those bubble-gum and pop-corn kind of movies that Samurai movie buffs love. If that will bother you, move on to something else. For example, there is a scene where the lead character is using his guns in a way that is very reminiscent of swords, including a spin as he completes a noto (resheathing).
If you're looking for a samurai movie, you'll like it and 'get' it.
If you're looking for swords clashing and hakama, you'll not like it.
DVD Review: Ancient tribes and their rites
Summary: 5 Stars
When a movie maker is as controversial as Jarmusch, one has to take sides. Or ignore him, as I did for a long time. Now not any longer, after watching a few of his very special gems.
Ghost Dog, in summary, sounds like a standard action or mob film. The title hero, Whitaker, is a black hit man in New York, working for the mob with a special personal bond of loyalty to one the mobsters, not the top guy. He gets entangled in a complicated farce of an honor issue of the senile and ridiculous gangsters that dominate the film. The top mobster, a ghost- like Henry Silva, decides that the hitman must be killed.
Ghost Dog has self-styled himself as a samurai, and he follows the code as he sees it from a book that he reads on his roof, where lives with his carrier pigeons. He fights back with restraints of loyalty.
Those who take the film as a normal action film will be disappointed. It is an absurd farce on the genre, with great dialogues and cinematography. It is packed with cinema allusions, some explicit like the High Noon show down at the end, many others less blatant. Great fun.
DVD Review: Surprisingly good
Summary: 4 Stars
My boyfriend nicely lured me into watching this, and I loved it.
I have seen Forest Whitaker in plenty of movies, but this was one of my favorite performances. I'm surprised it didn't receive more attention in the past.
Description of Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai
A black hitman goes by the name Ghost Dog and lives by the code of the samurai.Genre: Feature Film Urban Action
Rating: R
Release Date: 21-OCT-2003
Media Type: DVD
Forest Whitaker makes an unlikely modern samurai with his laser-sighted pistols, shabby street clothes, and oddly graceful gait--but then Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is an unusual film. Quirky, contemplative, and at times absurd, it's just the kind offbeat vision we've come to expect from the fiercely independent Jim Jarmusch (Stranger than Paradise, Dead Man). Whitaker is Ghost Dog, a mysterious New York hit man who lives simply on a tenement rooftop and follows a code of behavior outlined in Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (passages of this book are interspersed throughout the film). When the local mob marks him for death in a complicated code of Mafiosi-style honor, Ghost Dog sends a cryptic message to his foes. "That's poetry. The poetry of war," remarks mobster Henry Silva, with sudden respect upon reading the verse. He could be describing the ethereal beauty of Jarmusch's vision, full of wonderful imagery (a night drive across town seems to float in time) and off-center humor. Though it briefly stalls in a series of assassinations (Jarmusch is no action director), it settles back into character-driven drama in a quietly epic showdown, equal parts samurai adventure, spaghetti western, and existential crime movie. The film is likely too unconventional and offbeat for general audiences, but cult-movie buffs and Jarmusch fans will appreciate his idiosyncratic vision. He finds a strange sense of honor in the clash of Old World traditions, and salutes his heroes with a skewed but sincere respect. --Sean Axmaker
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