Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
All actors and roles (10)
Short description
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai follows a contract killer living in New York who has adopted the code of the ancient samurai as his personal guide. He works quietly and invisibly, loyal to a Mafia figure who once saved his life, until the crime family he serves turns against him and he becomes a target rather than an asset. Forest Whitaker plays the title role, with John Tormey, Cliff Gorman, Frank Minucci, Richard Portnow and Tricia Vessey among the cast.
Jim Jarmusch wrote, directed and produced the film, the seventh of the fourteen features he has directed, arriving between Dead Man and Coffee and Cigarettes. It was made for about 2 million dollars and took roughly 9 million dollars worldwide, a strong return on a modest budget. On IMDb it holds 7.5 out of 10 from around 104,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.3 out of 10 from about 1,500 votes. A critics' rating of 7.6 out of 10 from 106 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores.
The production was an international one, involving companies in Germany, the United States, France and Japan, and it runs 117 minutes. Blending crime drama with the samurai tradition, the film sets its killer's disciplined code against the shifting loyalties of the mob he serves.
What's left behind the scenes
- Ghost Dog and Louie have differing recollections of their first meeting. This is a reference to Akira Kurosawa's film "Rashomon," in which people give different accounts of the same event.
- The quotes in the film are taken from Yamamoto Tsunetomo's book "Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai."
- Each time Ghost Dog gets into a car, he turns on music and sets the volume to 21.
- Ghost Dog shoots Frank first in the stomach, then in the chest, and finally in the head. These shots are reminiscent of seppuku—a Japanese ritual suicide in which the first strike with a knife or sword is to the stomach, the second to the chest, and then the person committing suicide lowers their head, and an assistant decapitates them.
- The club that Ghost Dog drives up to before stealing clothes is called Liquid Sword. This is the title of GZA's first album, which was produced by RZA, who also wrote the original soundtrack to the film and played the camouflage-clad samurai in the finale.
- The character of Nobody is played by Gary Farmer. Farmer also played the identically named character in the film 'Dead Man'. Moreover, he utters the same phrase: 'Stupid fucking white man'.
- The heroine watches the 'Itchy & Scratchy' cartoon several times in the car, which is an internal cartoon within the 'Simpsons' series and has never been a standalone work.
- When Ghost Dog talks to the gangsters, he says his name is Bob Solo – a combination of the names of two characters played by Harrison Ford – Bob Falfa (from 'American Graffiti') and Han Solo (from 'Star Wars').
- The scene where Ghost Dog shoots the gangster through the water pipe is taken from Seijun Suzuki's film 'Branded to Kill'.
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