15 Most Underrated Samurai Films Of All Time
5. Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai (1999)
Starring Forest Whitaker as the eponymous hitman, Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai is an offbeat and unconventional take on the genre. It takes the action away from feudal Japan and moves it to the mafia underworld of modern America.
Living on rundown shack on a roof where he raises homing pigeons, Ghost Dog spends his time studying the philosophies of the samurai as recorded in the teachings of the Hagakure (a book written by samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo). However, after he’s hired to kill a made man in the mafia, he finds himself caught-up in an intricate web of vengeance and deceit, forcing him to fight for survival as the devout warrior he believes himself to be.
In accordance with the filmmaker’s style, Ghost Dog is quirky and comedic in nature. But it’s not without it’s heart too – and there’s a surprising amount of that carried in Whitaker’s subdued performance
It’s a samurai film unlike anything you’ve seen before, and that’s exactly why it deserves to be seen.