Review of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) by Ryancarroll88 — 26 Sep 2010
"Ghost Dog," the story of an inner city dweller who lives by the way of the samurai soaks up its premise not in blood splatter but in level-headed absurdity and complexity, a focus that takes much more time to absorb.
Still, the movie is fun in ways that you wouldn't expect - the antagonists are comprised of the worst ...mob probably ever caught on film: they are regularly shown whacking the wrong people, watching cartoons (the movies sly way of equating mob violence to cartoon violence) or falling behind on their rent.
Ghost Dog, played by Forest Whitaker, is quite a character himself, trying to make sense of the world through Zen judgment and ancient ways by frequently quoting relevant passages from Hagakure, the book of the Samurai.
Furthermore his 'best friend' is an ice cream truck man who can only speak French. This combined with the fact that the movie isn't afraid to address questions of morality and racism make the movie even more of a head-scratcher but nevertheless entertaining.
To top it all off, RZA's soundtrack is one of the highlights of the film, layering it with great old-style Wu-Tang hip-hop that is enough to make the movie worth watching itself.
This review of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) was written by Ryancarroll88 on 26 Sep 2010.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai has generally received very positive reviews.
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