This particular little gem is in serious danger of being forgotten...though, when one watches the film, it's understandable why. It's too violent for the serious drama, too literary for the (insert vomiting sound to the point of dry heaves) Tarintino crowd of faux crime, and way, way too little action for the testerone junkies who watch appalling, shoddily made action films for the cool explosions instead of the non-existent plotlines.
So, having established what "Ghost Dog: Way of the Samuri" is not, what exactly is it? When it comes to thumbnails, only one brief descriptor comes to mind: a quiet action film. There are, of course, some serious differences between it and your standard action film. They are as follows:
1)Fewer targets. Adding up the body count of your average action flick would probably result in the approximate population of a small city. Here, there are only a few aging thugs still trying to pretend that all is well with Cosa Nostra (Italian for "Our Thing"; watching these sad relics makes me think of Andrew Vachss only unpublished novel, "A Bomb Built In Hell", written in 1972. One of the major characters, a mobster doing a life sentence says something to the effect of "Our thing is dead. It used to be a blood thing, now it's just criminals."). Still, they are menacing enough to make the viewer miss the real danger to Ghost Dog.
2)A moral center. The only ethos of your average action film (important exceptions being the Hong Kong films of John Woo) is "whoever has the most ammunition wins". Every now and again here, we are given passages from the Way of the Samauri, which add heft and meaning to the cold and final actions of a master assasin.
3)No real love interest. I don't think I need to explain that those have been de rijour since at least the Golden Age of James Bond, if not further back. Not so here. The only one that comes close is the mobster daughter we meet in the beginning and things don't play out like you would think.
4)The violence. John Woo still did it better back in Hong Kong, but the violence here is a close second. Here, it is vicious, cold, and final. No second chances. It almost makes one realize what it takes to commit such acts...not something to contemplate comfortably.
5)A vulnerable hero. Granted, Ghost Dog pulls off all his kills without a hitch, but it must not be forgotten that how he came to be in this business was based on a moment when he was helpless. The only reason all his kills go down so smooth is that he is better prepared than his targets. This is true even in the movie's ending, when the circle of blood closes.
This will be a movie, like "This Gun For Hire", "The Limey", and "Point Blank", that will stay with me for a long time, regardless of how it is ultimately remembered. The wisest words of all usually come in whispers.
So, having established what "Ghost Dog: Way of the Samuri" is not, what exactly is it? When it comes to thumbnails, only one brief descriptor comes to mind: a quiet action film. There are, of course, some serious differences between it and your standard action film. They are as follows:
1)Fewer targets. Adding up the body count of your average action flick would probably result in the approximate population of a small city. Here, there are only a few aging thugs still trying to pretend that all is well with Cosa Nostra (Italian for "Our Thing"; watching these sad relics makes me think of Andrew Vachss only unpublished novel, "A Bomb Built In Hell", written in 1972. One of the major characters, a mobster doing a life sentence says something to the effect of "Our thing is dead. It used to be a blood thing, now it's just criminals."). Still, they are menacing enough to make the viewer miss the real danger to Ghost Dog.
2)A moral center. The only ethos of your average action film (important exceptions being the Hong Kong films of John Woo) is "whoever has the most ammunition wins". Every now and again here, we are given passages from the Way of the Samauri, which add heft and meaning to the cold and final actions of a master assasin.
3)No real love interest. I don't think I need to explain that those have been de rijour since at least the Golden Age of James Bond, if not further back. Not so here. The only one that comes close is the mobster daughter we meet in the beginning and things don't play out like you would think.
4)The violence. John Woo still did it better back in Hong Kong, but the violence here is a close second. Here, it is vicious, cold, and final. No second chances. It almost makes one realize what it takes to commit such acts...not something to contemplate comfortably.
5)A vulnerable hero. Granted, Ghost Dog pulls off all his kills without a hitch, but it must not be forgotten that how he came to be in this business was based on a moment when he was helpless. The only reason all his kills go down so smooth is that he is better prepared than his targets. This is true even in the movie's ending, when the circle of blood closes.
This will be a movie, like "This Gun For Hire", "The Limey", and "Point Blank", that will stay with me for a long time, regardless of how it is ultimately remembered. The wisest words of all usually come in whispers.