My Review of Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999) directed by Jim Jarmusch

 A curious film, pretty much de facto produced by the Wu-Tang Clan (Rza actually scored it, first film with an original hip-hop score). Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai (1999) was directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars Forest Whitaker as a hitman that follows the code of Bushido. 

This films feeling of loneliness and uncertainty of the coming millennium is one of the beautiful things about it. The protagonists and antagonists are looking into the year 2000 not certain what will happen to them. Their lives of the 20th century have become laughably obsolete--like Kierkegaard would say they are all tragic-comic. But before they can go into this void, some business has to be taken care of. The film is almost as apocalyptic as Eugene O'Neil's The Iceman Cometh. 

This movie is part adaptation of Le Samouraï (1967), concerning a mysterious hitman that works personally to a mobster in New Jersey. The twist is that this hitman–that refers to himself only as Ghost Dog–models himself after a Japanese samurai and regularly reads from the Hagakure, the most famous commentary for the code of Bushido. When he does a hit that goes wrong because of his boss' error, a hit is placed on Ghost Dog himself and while he realizes that as a "good samurai" he has to answer for this regardless of who's fault it was, he makes sure that the big bosses who control his "lord" answer before he does.

The theme of loneliness and uncertainty at the end of the 20th century are the two most dominant for me. The mobsters are facing an existential crisis over there future as they no longer command the sort of power that they once had. They try to keep their traditional lifestyle going, but it does not work as it use to. Gangster films like Casino (1995) also deal with some of these themes, but in as stark a terms. At the same time, the loneliness that the regular people who Ghost Dog encounters throughout this film is shown in such an intimae and beautiful way that defies my attempt to describe it. He unfortunately misses an opportunity to kill Marlo Stanfield—one of the few mistakes of this film😉. These themes almost risk overwhelming the film spiritually, but are sonically balanced by the Hip-Hop score. Though this is not the best Hip-Hop score made for a film, it ain't the worst and it definitely gives you enough of the feel of 1990s East Coat Hip-Hop. 

Jim Jarmusch is one of the greatest of the Indie film-makers and this movie further shows his talent. This is his penultimate film with the legendary cinematographer Robby Müller, who's cinematography is so masterful here as it is in most of his films.