Ghost Dog (1999) starring Forest Whitaker was a very interesting film to me. To be honest I didn’t particularly think it was all that great as far as story goes but it definitely contained things that I did enjoy and small subtleties that were very clever in their execution. One thing that I thought was great , which everyone keeps talking about, is how the cartoons actions are used as strong methods of foreshadowing in the movie. For example the ending, when the mobster is watching a cartoon character shooting through a drain pipe to attack another character and that exactly what Ghost Dog does to antagonist towards the end of the film. This was one aspect of the film that I really enjoyed. I feel that it was a strong element throughout the movie.

Another thing that I really like was how he was constantly followed by the pigeons and in almost ever shot there was a pigeon somewhere always kind of looking over him. When he is passing the other guy on the street who is wearing the camouflage outfit, there is a pigeon that is always above Ghost Dog no matter what. These pigeons played a large role and were symbols throughout the whole film. The pigeons weren’t the only symbols though many other animals including the dog and bear. Animals in general played a role and they are very sacred to the samurai. One thing that I was reading about the film and trying to understand was when Ghost Dog and his friend go onto a roof top and see a man building a boat and I wondered why the boat scene was necessary for this movie? After some thought and seeing all of the animals in the movie, Im not sure why but I kept finding myself coming back to the story of Noah and his Ark. I dont really know how else to elaborate but Ghost Dog and his friend were talking about how he would get it down? and they joked about a flood and when they interrupted the man he just said he didnt understand and that he stressed how he needed to finish and how it seemed like he was in a rush to finish just like Noah. That was one part that I thought was interesting.

Finally, the question of genre kept getting throw into our class discussion and we were trying to find a set genre for the movie. Ghost Dog is in my opinion just another Crime Movie with aspects of a thriller. But we argued that the film contains many different aspects of other genres and I think its really important to be able to label a film with a set genre. The film could definitely be classified on many levels as a number of genres. One post I thought was interesting and liked to read was Chris Kelly’s blog and how he can see it as a western with various scenes that hint at that genre specifically the end when Ghost Dog and Louie are standing in the street. I couldn’t agree more with his post. Also I noticed that the movie was considered a Martial Arts film and in these films generally there are a lot of martial arts fighting but in this movie he just does all his fighting with a gun and there is maybe five seconds of actual martial arts when the mugger gets beat up by the elderly man bringing groceries to his car. I found this interesting and was just wondering if others believe this movie to be a “true” martial arts film. I know it had a lot of tendencies of many Japanese movies and I haven’t seen my far share of those so if someone could elaborate more on that then that would be cool.