Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

I'm happy there's another Jim Jarmusch film on the horizon, and as the Nation says, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is "cool". Hip. Like the director, his icy blond hair standing on edge, and like the quirky and wondeful films he is famous for. When I think of Jarmusch, I think of he soundtracks by Screamin Jay Hawkins, that fantastic scene with Tom Waits and Robert Benini in a broken down jail cell screaming for ice-cream in Down by Law. Or Winona Ryder as chain smoking cab driver in Night on Earth. Johnny Depp as William Blake, not the poet, but a man lost in the woods in Dead Man. "Have you read my poetry?" he asks.

indieWIRE gives Jarmsuch credit for nearly single-handedly defining independent cinema. I don't claim to always understand a Jarmusch film, but one thing I cannot do is stay away.

Synopsis

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai ingeniously re-imagines the gangster picture as a cross-cultural fusion of Eastern philosophy, hip-hop music, urban darkness, and movie iconography. Written, directed and produced by Jim Jarmusch, the film stars the sublime Forest Whitaker as Ghost Dog, a man of few words who shares his rooftop home with dozens of pigeons. Ghost Dog lives by the precepts of the 18th century warrior text, Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai, practicing the ancient disciplines of the samurai and applying them to his work as a contract killer (courtesty of Artisan Entertainment).

Reviews

indieWIRE
"This film -- while not as original and haunting as Dead Man -- is also Jarmusch's funniest to date."

A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"Even the most resistant moviegoer may be provoked by Ghost Dog. Indeed, the best way to appreciate this fascinating but uneven film may be to resist it, to watch it unfold in the persistent, persistently thwarted expectation that it will erupt into the hip-hop Mafia shoot-'em-up it stubbornly refuses to be."

Culture Vulture
"There's something inspiring about Jarmusch working with such dogged persistence for all these years on his happily marginal films."

More

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
The official cite of this Artisan release.

The Jim Jarmusch Resource Page
A great place for a complete filmography, bio, links to interviews and articles about this great director.

Jarmuschs's list of recommendations
Find out what films influence Jarmusch and then go watch them for yourself

Stranger Than Paradise - 1984
"There's something very American about (STRANGER THAN PARADISE) and yet formally it's not traditional at all. That comes from the way I write, which is backwards. Rather than finding a story that I want to tell and then adding the details, I collect the details and then try to construct a puzzle or a story." -- Jim Jarmusch, 1985

Down By Law - 1986
Tom Waits, Zack John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni in one jail cell.

Year of the Horse - 1997
A rock'n'roll movie about the band, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and the music they make together.