A n year of wars, invasions, coup(s), failed promises, institutional implosion, and rabid social malice, easily brings up the idea of loyalty. One practiced, one misunderstood, one of history and one of tradition.
Its labyrinthine (often destructive) nature was superbly explored by Jim Jarmusch – America’s most original and interesting film director – 24 years ago, in 1999’s phenomenal Ghost Dog.
Rewatch it. Watch it.
More words will not do it justice and it doesn’t need them anyway. This is a film from the gut for the gut.
GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI (Synopsis)
A hit-man develops an undying loyalty to the Italian gangster who once saved his life and loses himself, and the rundown reality that envelopes him, in the ethical and military the code of the ancient Japanese warriors.
His very existence becomes so entwined by these principles that he has to make a choice between his own life and his belief that he must live or die as a samurai subject to a one and only master.
Shot by uber-cinematographer Robby Müller, palpably real and tormented, flooded in desolate urban grit, this film flows in the solitary cries of a pigeons in flight, the only ones who share the hitman’s lonely quest for the bounds and the glory of the samurai existence.
Sublime performance by the matchless Forrest Whitaker.
Music by Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA; with Cliff Gorman, Camille Winbush, Isaach de Bankole, Henry Silva, and Tricia Vessey.
GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI
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