History Film / GhostDogTheWayOfTheSamurai

* ContractOnTheHitman: Ghost Dog was originally sent to kill Handsome Frank for sleeping with Louise, the daughter of TheDon, Ray Vargo. There's two problems: the first is that Handsome Frank is a made man, and as such is supposed to be above getting killed except in very specific circumstances, such as if he was caught informing on the mob to the police, so Vargo wants the hit to be totally untraceable and impossible to link to their Family's higher ups. Second is that despite the attempts to get Louise out of the way so there'd be no danger to her and no witnesses to Frank's killing, she was there and saw what happened. Had nobody been there it could perhaps have been passed off as a random break-in or someone outside the Family taking a shot at Handsome Frank, and Vargo could have pretended to try to find out who was responsible for awhile and then quietly dropped it. However, Vargo is furious over Louise being traumatized and because she can describe the killer, the Family is honor bound to "avenge" Frank's death. (Although even the Vargo Family's foot soldiers seem to know that the whole thing is a show and Frank was killed for sleeping with Louise, as seen when one soldier tries to give condolences to Frank's uncle, and the uncle just shrugs and says "They whacked him.") [[spoiler:Ghost Dog kills the entire mafia outfit on his own, with the exceptions of Louie and Louise]].

* BrickJoke: The Italian mobster who professes his love for Music/PublicEnemy in a seemingly throwaway joke... but near the end of the movie is actually seen alone in his house blasting PE and rapping along.

* ContractOnTheHitman: Ghost Dog was originally send to kill Handsome Frank for sleeping with Louise, Ray Vargo's daughter. Since Louise was present and witnessed the execution, things get complicated and suddenly the same Handsome Frank needs to be avenged by killing Ghost Dog. [[spoiler:Ghost Dog kills the entire mafia outfit on his own, sans Louie and Louise]].

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: In keeping with his ancient samurai code, Ghost Dog obeys Louie without question, even if this means becoming a hitman.
** Ghost Dog's murder of the two hunters for killing a bear also qualifies, even if they were poaching."

* ContractOnTheHitman: Ghost Dog was originally send to kill Handsome Frank for sleeping with Luise, Ray Vargo's daughter. Since the girl was present at the execution, things get complicated and suddenly the same Handsome Frank needs to be avenged by killing Ghost Dog. [[spoiler: He kills the entire mafia outfit on his own, sans Louie and Louise]].

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler: Ghost Dog and most of the mobsters are dead by the end of the film.]]

* TheStoic: One of the most defining characteristics of Ghost Dog is how calm and collected he is in all kind of situations. He is never shown loosing his temper, even when [[spoiler: he finds his home trashed and all his pigeons killed or when obviously pissed when meeting two poachers]]. And despite barely changing expression or voice tone, he's still capable of expressing wide range of emotions when he wants to.

* LonersAreFreaks: It gets even invoked by Pearline. Apparently Ghost Dog has a well-established reputation as such in his hood, living in a shack with a pidgeons and always being alone. He himself is fully aware how lonely he is and how much it affects him.

* TheOner: The meeting between Louie and Ghost Dog is shot in full sequence. Not only it involved writting it in a way to guarantee both safety of John Tormey and finding a way to still fire a gun, but required from Whitaker to hold his outstretched arm holding a gun in it for two minutes, while keeping a stoic face and not making a single twitch.

* TheStoic: One of the most defining characteristics of Ghost Dog is how calm and collected he is in all kind of situations. He is never shown loosing his temper, even when [[spoiler: he finds his home trashed and all his pidgeons killed or when obviously pissed when meeting two poachers]]. And despite barely changing expression or voice tone, he's still capable of expressing wide range of emotions when he wants to.

[[caption-width-right:300:Live by the code, die by the code]]

An unusual mix of the samurai and gangster genres, ''Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai'' is a 1999 movie by independent filmmaker Creator/JimJarmusch, starring Creator/ForestWhitaker.

* CompletelyMissingThePoint: Out of universe. Roger Ebert points out that a lot of reviewers complimented the story's various nods to samurai movies without seeming to acknowledge the ''protagonist is insane.''
-->"It seems strange that a black man would devote his life to doing hired killing for a group of Italian-American gangsters after having met only one of them. But then it's strange, too, that Ghost Dog lives like a medieval Japanese samurai. The whole story is so strange, indeed, that I've read some of the other reviews in disbelief. Are movie critics so hammered by absurd plots that they can't see how truly, profoundly weird "Ghost Dog" is? The reviews treat it matter of factly: Yeah, here's this hit man, he lives like a samurai, he gets his instructions by pigeon, blah . . . blah . . . and then they start talking about the performances and how the director, Jim Jarmusch, is paying homage to Kurosawa and "High Noon." But the man is insane! In a quiet, sweet way, he is totally unhinged and has lost all touch with reality. His profound sadness, which permeates the touching Whitaker performance, comes from his alienation from human society, his loneliness, his attempt to justify inhuman behavior (murder) with a belief system (the samurai code) that has no connection with his life or his world. Despite the years he's spent studying The Way of the Samurai , he doesn't even reflect that since his master doesn't subscribe to it, their relationship is meaningless."

An unusual mix of samurai and gangster genres, ''Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai'' is a 1999 movie by independent filmmaker Creator/JimJarmusch, starring Creator/ForestWhitaker.

* TheCameo[=/=]ActorAllusion: Gary Farmer briefly reprises his role from ''Film/DeadMan'' as a pissed-off Native American mystic who lives on a rooftop and is briefly mistaken for Ghost Dog. ''"Stupid fucking white man!"''

** The radio devide Ghost Dog uses to bypass electrical locks and electronics is a modernized version of the massive ring of keys from ''Film/LeSamourai''. Jef Costello was able to to steal any Citroën DS thanks to it.

* {{Cameo}}[=/=] ActorAllusion: Gary Farmer briefly reprises his role from ''Film/DeadMan'' as a pissed-off Native American mystic who lives on a rooftop and is briefly mistaken for Ghost Dog. ''"Stupid fucking white man!"''

** The radio devide Ghost Dog uses to bypass electrical locks and electronics is a modernised version of the massive ring of keys from Film/LeSamourai. Jef Costello was able to to steal any Citroën DS thanks to it.

The story follows a hitman who calls himself Ghost Dog in the employ of the mafia. Ghost Dog has a ForeignCultureFetish for Japan in general and the samurai in particular, and strictly adheres to a samurai code derived from ''Literature/TheHagakure'' (a collection of quotations and musings from a famous samurai), and snippets from the book pop up during the movie.

Ghost Dog sees himself as a retainer (in the servant sense) of a local mafia member named Louie, who [[IOweYouMyLife saved Ghost Dog's life]] years ago. As a result, about a couple of times a year Ghost Dog performs totally untraceable assassinations on behalf of Louie and the mob family that Louie is a member of. But during the latest hit things get complicated, and the plot moves forward from there.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Ghost Dog kills everyone from Ray Vargo's outfit aside his "master", Louie... who is ordered by Louise to kill Ghost Dog to avenge the death of her father. Pearline and Raymond witness the execution, a heartbreaking event that they are helpless to prevent. But in the end of it, Ghost Dog remained loyal to his principles, Louie is fine and alive, Raymond ends up with hefty stack of money and Pearline reads the Hagakure that Ghost Dog left her, finally coming to truly understand her enigmatic friend and possibly to follow in his footsteps]].

* NotableOriginalMusic: The soundtrack composed by RZA of the Music/WuTangClan. The DVD offers the possibility of seeing the whole film as a silent, with no other sound than RZA's soundtrack.