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Film Archive

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

Out of the Past 2022 / Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai / USA, France, Germany, Japan 1999

A hit man (Forest Whitaker) who follows the samurai code. Jim Jarmusch’s masterpiece, in which action goes hand in hand with meditation, and which shoots not only bullets but also wisdom. At times it is deathly serious, at other times tongue-in-cheek, with an almost imperceptibly ironic smile crossing its lips.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

Synopsis

Silent scenes in which the actors’ gaze says more than any overwrought monologue. Original music reflecting the film's character and its setting. Robby Müller’s hands-on and yet unobtrusive camera. In Ghost Dog, these constant elements of so many of Jim Jarmusch’s films intersect with extraordinary intensity. And the friendly synergy between the French-speaking ice-cream vendor and the African-American assassin works just as well. The phrase “everything is changing” is expressed several times in the film. Seemingly unrelated worlds on the streets of New Jersey function in unexpected harmony. Despite the blood, Ghost Dog is a contemplative, almost serene film that says you don’t have to speak the same language to fully understand one another. A film as slick as the mobster Louie.

Viktor Palák

About the film

116 min / Color, DCP

Director Jim Jarmusch / Screenplay Jim Jarmusch / Dir. of Photography Robby Müller / Music ​RZA / Sound Chic Ciccolini III / Editor Jay Rabinowitz / Art Director Mario Ventenilla / Producer Richard Guay, Jim Jarmusch / Production JVC Entertainment Networks / Coproduction Canal +, Bac films, Plywood production, Pandora filmproduktion, ARD Degeto Film / Cast Forest Whitaker, John Tormey, Cliff Gorman, Dennis Liu, Richard Portnow, Tricia Vessey, Henry Silva, Frank Adonis, Victor Argo, Gano Grills / Sales Studiocanal / Distributor Aerofilms

About the director

Jim Jarmusch

Jim Jarmusch (1953, Akron, Ohio, USA). Selected filmography: Permanent Vacation (1980), Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Mystery Train (1989), Dead Man (1995), Broken Flowers (2005), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013).

Contacts

Studiocanal
50 rue Camille Desmoulins, 928 63, Issy les Moulineaux Cedex 9
France
Phone: +33 892 393 910
E-mail: [email protected]

Aerofilms
Milady Horákové 383/79, 170 00, Praha 7
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 224 947 566
E-mail: [email protected]

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