After watching Ghost Dog I tried to figure out what genre this movie would be labeled as, but I found myself struggling to identify the genre of the film simply because it drew on so many disparate forms of film making. On the surface level it clearly possesses elements of the American Gangster crime drama because it deals with the mafia and revolves around a struggle for power, but if you look past this and focus on the plight of Ghost Dog the film can be read as a modern day western that follows an aging gunslingers’ struggle to adapt to a modernizing world.

The archetype of Ghost Dog is that of the classic western hero: a quiet loner that is constantly seeking justice in morally questionable ways. This is an archetype that has been portrayed by hundreds of characters from western movie history, ranging from Clint Eastwood’s character of The Man with No Name to John Wayne’s character Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. The only difference between Ghost Dog’s version of this hero and the versions of the hero portrayed by actors like Eastwood and Wayne is that Ghost Dog is guided by a set of principles and ancient beliefs rather than a thirst for revenge. Even so, Ghost Dog still fulfills his role as a western hero because he tries to the best of his ability to create justice in a world that is becoming filled with more and more moral decay. This is evident in the scenes in which Ghost Dog reads the ancient texts aloud. During these sequences Ghost Dog condemns the lifestyles and cultural attitude that many people have developed in the modern day world, thus solidifying himself as a cowboy-like hero that is on a quest to bring justice to an amoral world.

Another scene that embodies the western genre is the duel scene that occurs between Ghost Dog and Louie at the end of the film. This final showdown is a clear allusion to the type of western shoot outs featured in classics like “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, but unlike its predecessors the director puts a twist on this scene by having Ghost Dog openly accept his death by refusing to fire his gun. I thought this act was really important because it shows that even though Ghost Dog had lived a violent and morally questionable life he ended it with an act of kindness, which in this case was giving Louie the Japanese book so the way of the samurai would not die with him and the philosophy he lived by would live on.