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Coffin Joe takes a look at GHOST DOG: WAY OF THE SAMURAI
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 .
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After seeing NOE several times, (like a train wreck I cant help but watch everytime its on IFC, I will gladly put down money on anything Jarmusch directs. He has an obvious talent and flare for taking the mundane aspects of life and making them seem in-ordinately HUMANE. Who else can take a 20 minute monologue in a Italian taxi and with Roberto Benigni, & turn it into the funniest bits EVER filmed? It seems that Ghost Dog (especially w/Whittaker) is an extension of his universe. I can't wait to catch this one...
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Also, I apologize for the horrible typing skills, but hey! Can you do any better with Scissors for fingers??? SNIP!
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...I think you worry too much. What's a "ghostdog"?
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I keep a framed poster of "Stranger than Paradise" in my apartment because I'm still unsure if it's the worst movie ever made or a work of absolute genius. I hope I never know. I really didn't like "Dead Man," but then "Down By Law," "Night on Earth," and "Mystery Train" are simply incredible. I'm looking forward to "Ghost Dog" because a pal of mine said it was the consummate Jarmusch film and I'm interested to know what the hell that means. Probably my favorite Jarmusch moment though is his cameo in "Leningrad Cowboys Go America" when he sells the band their car.
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I thought Dead Man was a truly original piece of work that rewards those who view it more than once. Will be looked back on years later as the masterpiece it is. His older stuff I can take or leave; interesting but too film schoolish. The fade out every shot thing works for the tone of Dead Man but usually annoys the fuck out of me. Maybe it will fit Ghost Dog too. Either way I'll see 99% of anything Forest Whittaker is in. And by the way, Regginal, the correct Forest line from The Color of Money is, "You think I need to lose some weight?" "Fuck you, kid." CLASSIC.
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Spookily enough i saw Dead Man for the first time on cable in the UK last night. Wow, what a movie, so beautiful, i too was unsure about the fade outs but once the film progressed it all seemed to fit perfectly. I will definately be hunting this one out now. Nice to know there are still originals working out there.
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A little disappointed? C'mon, this is Jim Jarmusch, Forrest Whitaker, a Samaurai, and the mafia!!!! I have been saying on this site for a long time how the movie to watch for is Ghost Dog! It's a film lovers dream!! Fuck X-Men sideways!! Ghost Dog will hack Halle Berry and those other leather clad faggots into 40 pieces!! I think Ghost Dog is the flick you should've been pushing on your site, Harry...I am disappointed...
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I saw the trailer for this *ahem* interesting film a long time ago. I think it was run before "3 Kings". Nevertheless, when I saw ole flabby Forrest meditating and then slowly sheathing his katana (samurai sword) upside down, I had to giggle. My wife just stared at me like the geek I am. So if that is any indication, Forrest is NO Toshiro Mifune.
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I just realized that my earlier rant could be construed as criticism of Forrest. I think he is a GREAT actor and has done wonderfully in many roles. "Color of Money" being one of the great ones. I just get a little miffed when I see incredible inaccuracies in regard to martial arts that have nothing to do with the willing suspension of disbelief; i.e., wire-work. Hence my rant about this film and my earlier critiques of Wesley Snipes.
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dont blame the readers of aicn for not seeing those movies, its not our fault they were commercial dissapointments
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a great piece of filmmaking that I'm going to have to take a roadtrip to see as my POS pissant town only shows "real" movies...that's how they described it to me when I asked why they never showed any indies...hell they didn't get American Beauty until like a month and half after it was realeased...Man on the Moon, over a month after it was released...and this is a town with a University...so like I said looks like a road trip for me...as I live in eastern kansas it'll probably have to be Wichita or Kansas City
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Feb 23, 2000 2:34:07 AM CST
Forrest Whittaker and Jim Jarmusch are both VERY COOL PEOPLE. So
by mickey finn
Forrest Whitaker ROCKS. He is so cool in Abel Ferrara
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Here in Sweden Ghost Dog opened last week, and I'm telling you, go see this movie, it's wonderful, a perfect mix of action, humour and drama. I was positive towards most Jarmusch's other films but this one blew me away, and Whittaker rules as a gangsta-samurai. Btw keep track of the cartoons that appear in the film and their relation to what's going on...wonderful.
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I saw this in Paris a couple of months ago, and it's..well, it's pretty good, but I guess I was expecting Jarmusch to follow Dead Man with another masterpiece, and this is a much more low key affair. Don't get me wrong, there are touches of greatness - Whitaker's performance, the RZA soundtrack, and the samurai wisdom chapters that intersperse the action, but it's a shame that Jarmusch relies on a plot with no surprises whatsoever - the old hitman vs. the mob thing that's been done a thousand times before. Also, I know this is a Jarmusch staple, but sometimes the fact that he lets the camera run, and run, and run, in order to indulge his actor's improvisations just gets annoying after a while. Still, I hate to nitpick a filmmaker with integrity who does his own thing, so go see it anyway, cos it's still much better than most stuff out there. But it's no Dead Man - and anyone who hasn't seen that is in for a fuckin treat.
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I bought a copy of this aggitating little movie called The Blair Witch Project just so I could have access to that dialed Ghost Dog trailer whenever i wanted. The RZA is a master tone scientist, I want this score.
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Feb 25, 2000 12:28:01 PM CST
It's the WAY of the Samurai, not THE Samurai. WAY = Samurai's co
by herman snerd
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