Sven's Review of Ghost Dog

I went into this movie thinking I'd hate it for sure. I've never actually seen a Jarmusch film (save the first bit of Broken Flowers), and so had very little to go on other than the title: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai... Uhm, what? I look into the film a bit more to learn that it is "An innovative blend of samurai and gangster lifestyles" (Rotten Tomatoes). How in the world does someone accomplish that? So, finally, I sit down to watch the movie.

My first impression is "eh." It's obviously not a blockbuster; it has an indie feel to it, which is fine. Then, it gets to the scene where Ghost Dog and Pearline meet in the park and converse over books. This is where the movie went from 'dislike' to 'like' for me. This impressed me. The movie doesn't develop Ghost Dog much at all, so this scene, for me, is what got me to like the character Ghost Dog. This scene and all of the scenes with Ghost Dog and Raymond the Haitian ice cream salesman were my favorites parts of the film.



The ending stuff was really great too: the kill scenes (the cartoons were funny), the showdown in the street, the passing of the Rashomon book. It was a satisfying ending.

The film did start to feel preachy though. There's a lot of metaphors and wordplay, and it felt like Jarmusch was trying too hard to make them clear. I would've preferred a scene with Ghost Dog at home in place of the scene with the hunters and the bear on the side of the highway.

I really didn't care for the transition pieces with the Hagakure lessons read aloud by Ghost Dog (and later Pearline). They withdrew me from the film. Perhaps it would have been better to actually see Ghost Dog reading the book, maybe in flash back scenes from when he first received it (this would also double as some character development). Also, these passages were sometimes hard to understand; they felt like bad poetry.

This movie has a lot to say, so mad props to Jarmusch.

Overall, I give it three birds sitting on the barrel of a sniper rifle out of five.