Starring: Forest Whitaker
Writer/Director: Jim Jarmusch
Composer: RZA
Release Date: March 3 & March 17, 2000
Review: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai stars Forest Whitaker as the titular character, a hitman who lives by the code of the samurai as outlined in the 18th-century text Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, reciting quotes regularly. For example, "Taking an enemy on the battlefield is like a hawk taking a bird. Even though it enters into the midst of a thousand of them, it pays no attention to any of them other than the one than it has first marked." Hagakure itself is a collection of thoughts about life as a swordsman in ancient Japan, and Ghost Dog extends this philosophy into his career as a contract killer. At the film's outset, a contract goes wrong and the Italian mafia who employs Ghost Dog ultimately decides to kill him. Jim Jarmusch subtly contrasts the old-world nobility of the samurai through Ghost Dog and the clumsy, fearful life of the mafia throughout the film, ending on a note similar to No Country for Old Men - that one way of the world is dying out, and the other has no room for it.
Forest Whitaker, as always, is superb. He's more than convincing as the titular character, reconciling organized crime and pistol-armed hits with a 300-year-old book of the samurai. Some may find the amount of quotes he narrates from Hagakure to be a bit overbearing, but I thought they were perfect. The frequency of recitation from the book conveys how studiously Ghost Dog lives by the code, and that when reading the book itself, one finds himself bombarded with ideas and deep thoughts from the author. We see how Ghost Dog got into the business, as well. His point-of-contact, a low-level mobster named Louie, intervened and saved a young Ghost Dog from being beaten to death on the streets. Four years later, Ghost Dog shows up on Louie's doorstep and says that he owes Louie, and from then on is Louie's retainer - a loyal soldier.
This is an awesome movie that turned the notions of criminal - sometimes race-based - honor on its head. Some of the unspoken ideas - that Louie is responsible for Ghost Dog's life now that he's saved it, that some ideals never fade even when they don't fit with the world of the day - help leave the viewer with thoughts that will stick in his/her head for hours after viewing.
The Wu Connection: Who better to compose a score about Eastern philosophy meeting American street- and crime-life than RZA? RZA's group Wu-Tang Clan has long operated under the cultural fusion of East-meets-West, with kung-fu samples interwoven into songs about growing up in poor urban neighborhoods surrounded by organized crime. It was only a matter of time until someone outside the music industry took notice, and Jim Jarmusch has the honors. This week's step on the Map of Shaolin was about the soundtrack for Ghost Dog, which RZA produced, populated by Wu-Tang affiliates like Blue Raspberry, Sunz of Man, North Star, Tekitha and the Wu themselves; RZA's score for the film is even more impressive. Meditative tracks like "Flying Birds" set the scene of Forest Whitaker training his carrier pigeons, and RZA himself makes a cameo appearance in the film. RZA passes Ghost Dog in the street and says "Ghost Dog - Power, Equality," to which Ghost Dog replies "Always See Everything." This exchange makes a reworked acronym: P.E.A.C.E., if one exchanges "See" for "C." An occasional phrase in the Wu lexicon is "Power Equality, Allah Sees Everything," as the group are devout Muslims; here, Jarmusch likely requested to leave the film religiously neutral. RZA is credited in the film as "Samurai in Camouflage," alluding to the idea that Ghost Dog's way of life is far from isolated to him.
Other nods to Wu-Tang are peppered throughout the movie.
- The mafiosos don't understand the name Ghost Dog, and one comments that a lot of "black guys" like "rappers" have two names. He cites Snoop Doggy Dogg, Method Man and Flava Flav. Method Man is an original member of the Wu; Snoop Dogg and Flava Flav both appeared on later Wu albums.
- Ghost Dog drives past a club called Liquid Sword, an homage to the 1995 GZA album Liquid Swords.
- Ghost Dog also sees some young men rapping in a park over an instrumental beat to "Ice Cream" from Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Liquid Swords and Cuban Linx are both classic Wu solo albums produced by RZA. Not only this, but two of the men rapping are Dreddy Kruger and Timbo King, frequent Wu associates.
- One of the songs Ghost Dog listens to while building a silencer for his gun is Wu-Tang's "Fast Shadow," which is a song the Wu wrote for the movie.
- Another is by Killah Priest, a Wu associate.
Bottom Line: Watch Ghost Dog, read Hagakure and stay tuned next week for our look back at GZA's Liquid Swords follow-up, Beneath the Surface.
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