Hey folks, Harry here... Coffin Joe is writing in with his look at GHOST DOG, which he saw as a resident of Brazil... Actually... when I saw GHOST DOG, I was a helluva lot closer to Brazil than to my current location as GHOST DOG was the closing film of THE FLOATING FILM FESTIVAL and presented by Richard Corliss.. who had seen it at Cannes last year. I was actually a little disappointed in the film as I walked out of the theater... but the further I've gotten from the film, the more I think I enjoyed it. Ya see... don't go into this film expecting a Samurai film... go expecting a Jim Jarmusch film because it's a helluva lot closer to MYSTERY TRAIN than it is to RAN. It's got a wicked sense of humor. Hopefully I'll write up my full thoughts on the film soon.... Till then... here's Coffin Joe...
Hey , Harry cryptic Coffin Joe here with a review of Ghost Dog , Way of the Samurai the new Jim Jarmusch flick , which I saw last year at the São Paulo film fest ( I even talked about it briefly with that Bullet Ballet review ) , and now that it has been released here and the U.S. release date is approaching I thought I should give the AICN readers a better idea of what this great movie is about .
PLOT : We follow this character called Ghost Dog , played superbly by Forest Whitaker , who is a hit man who lives by these codes of behavior contained in a book , the same rules the samurais in ancient Japan lived by . He lives on a shack placed on top of a building in Manhattan with his pet pigeons , which he uses to deliver messages to the mob guy he works for . See , he owes this gangster , he saved his life once , so Ghost Dog thinks he is his master , and treats him with the greatest respect ( well , he does shoot the guy twice in the movie , so I think Jim Jarmusch´s notion of respect is a little askew . Come to think of it EVERYTHING in Jim´s films are askew ) . Other than that Ghost Dog´s social life is made of two friends : a French who owes an ice cream truck , who doesn´t speak a word of English , ( catch is Ghost Dog doesn´t speak French . Still they are best friends . Way to go Mr.Jarmusch . ) and a little girl who loves to read .
Well , that about covers the plot , and things start to get in motion once a job Ghost Dog performed doesn´t go that well , and one family of mobsters wants his head . From then on the movie gets cool as hell , I won´t spoil it though , just go see the damn movie , you won´t regret it . Some really neat action sequences , in particular one at a mansion which reminded me very much of that final sequence in " A Better Tomorrow 2 " , where the bodies just pile up , remember that ? Well there are some of those in this flick , very suave , cool stuff .
Besides all this stuff you get the philosophy Ghost Dog follows on screen as passages from the book appear on the full screen every once in a while . Cookie fortune wisdom I thought initially , but it turns out there´s some truly deep messages there . Also cool .
On a final note the soundtrack is by Wu member RZA . I don´t like rap that much , but this SDTK , is great , very poetic and peaceful . Just perfect . RZA even makes a cameo in the movie .
( NOTE : I´ve looked all over the web for this SDTK , but can´t seem to find , does anyone know when it´s coming out ? If so drop a line at the TALK BACKS . No Pitch Black score either , even though I think it is some of Graeme Revell´s best work . Wake up SDTK execs ! )
Don´t miss this when it comes out , like most of you missed The Iron Giant , Fight Club or The Limey .
All the way from São Paulo , Brazil , Coffin Joe , getting tired of searching for a damn bride , says : bye .
