Review of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) by Simon A — 07 Jul 2008

If youve seen this movie, enjoyed it, but strached your head at the end wondering what Jarmusch was getting at. It's something that hes been getting at since "Mystery Train", that is people who have interests in cultures outside their own.

In Mystry Train, a japanese couple obsessed with american rock and roll of the 50's come to visit Memphis, in "Dead Man" an Indian is taken an educated in England, til he reads William Blake and is inspired to escape, only to meet a man in American named William Blake, who he educates in the Indian way of life(this actor appears in Ghost Dog as well in deliberate homage"Stupid fucking white man!"), so theres alot of cross cultural trading going on Jarmusch,...alright now Ghost Dog.

Ghost Dog features a black assasin, who lives by the Samuria code, Italian Mafioso who only like watching cartoons, a Hatian icecream driver, an old man building a large wooden ship on the roof of a tenement, a little girl reading "Frankenstien" and "Night Nurse", a mobster listening to "Flava Flav," etc.

The characters of Ghost Dog have interests that you would not initially prescribe to them. This is a film about culture wars and how they are not always chronological, the old vs. the new, here we have the old vs. the ancient. Ancient samurai code or no, Ghost Dog still listens to Wu-Tang Clan (hardcore rappers obsessed with Kung Fu films and Asian culture), suggesting a pick and choose culture, as opposed to one which is just handed down on high from cultural elders, he doesnt cut himself off completely from the world, just chosess to live in his own version of it. The lead mafioso's daughter(if youve seen the film she's the one who starts all the trouble), is in this position of cultural malaise with her aging mobsters, turning similarly to Japanese literature and cartoons for escape.

This is the only film Ive ever seen to have the books featured in the film listed in a bibliography in the credits, as if they were actors.

Speaking of which the performances are all dead pan, some quite funny. This is my favorite Jarmusch film, for a few reasons some personal(bieng a black kid who liked alot of shit black kids arent expected to be interested in I relate...I like Wu-Tang too.), and some aesthetic, this is after "Night On Earth"(just remembered the european cabbie trying to immerse himself in New York culture in that movie, for more evidence of Jarmusch as cultural trader) is his most acessible film. It's also one of the best films about samurai hitmen and mobsters you're likely to find, working from a place of bizzare genre(Blacksploitation/Action/Kung-Fu), Jarmucsch is able to create a moody, atmospheric, urban samurai noir, that actually tells us something about the shrinking and overlapping modern world in the wake of Globalization, not to an easy feat.

But that's what it's about, what it is, is a great mix of intensity and humor, action and reflection, a juncture of both the old and the new, which actions fans and Jarmusch indie fans can enjoy.