african americans and asian culture
like water and oil. this movie was harder to take seriously than last of the samurai.
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it's a movie called "Ghost dog" about a black hitman following the way of the samuri...not sure you were supposed to take it all that seriously.
Why shouldn't you?
I'm not one to scream "racism" at the drop of the hat, but it's pretty narrow minded to think that there's any culture out there that can't appreciate, understand or accept a philosophy from another culture.
Christ, look at how popular japanese animation is across the world.
(Not that it's a philosophy, that's more to the culture side of my argument)
Being born in one culture doesn't immediately exclude you from the teachings of another. Ghost Dog wasn't prancing around in samurai armor or using broken Japanese to order food at a restaurant. He just liked the philosophy behind the Hagakure and found it very relevant in serving for the man who saved his life.
OP, by contrast, you could as well be saying that a Japanese man who builds his life around Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy on civil rights is 'hard to take seriously.'
For some people, things just 'click.' Where they(the person, or the teachings) come from is irrelevant.
Ok, so you're not one to scream racism, you just hint at it in a round about way?
I was more referencing the the title than the colour of the man's skin. Of course being "born in one culture doesn't immediately exclude you from the teachings of another" and there are countless examples of this ranging from movies like kill bill to beverly hills ninja.
i think this movie was more like the Blaxploitation movies. ThInk Mister Keyes.
Well, I didn't call you a "dirty bigot", that counts for something, right?
I guess I should reword that first part to mean "I won't call you a racist, but something there regarding a persons race and the culture which his philosophy comes influencing the movies message/direction/emotion/intent/whatever the hell sounds a bit, well.. racially definitive, if it hinges on that(as the OP suggests)."
Too wordy, though.
Either way, I don't really see why this shouldn't be taken seriously. It's a rather serious film(not counting the ice cream man, or the "I shot you 'cause I'm your retainer" moments). Or why a "black hitman following the way of the samurai" is grounds for it not to be taken seriously in the first place, where as Beverly Hills Ninja was through and through a comedy from the beginning, and Kill Bill is an over the top spectacle of violence.
I just don't see why the main character being black, and following a japanese code of conduct should immediately make it some unbelievable joke.
Now, if Ghost Dog was running around slashing up the mobsters with a katana and doing backflips, I'd agree it was probably not intended to be taken seriously..
I'm just wondering why it has any bearing is all. Is it so unlikely for a contract killer to idolize the samurai?
ha, fair enough. you're absolutely right... there is no reason why it couldn't be taken seriously. it just reminded me more of a Jim Kelly movie (remember him?) then a serious martial arts movie... my beverly hills ninja reference was a joke but my point is that the title reminds me more of the old blaxpoitation movies than a serious martial arts movie... like, for example, three the hard way vs enter the dragon.
shareWell it shouldn't remind you of a serious martial arts movie at all, on account of the near complete lack of martial arts.
An old Asian guy kicks a mugger. Ghost Dog practices some rooftop kendo while philosophizing. Ghost Dog hits a fat guy with a car door then pistol whips him.
That's like, 25 seconds of the movie. That's it. That's ALL the martial arts you're getting, unless you consider good aim a martial art.
Ghost dog is, for the most part, and rough but efficient hitman using police style contemporary tactics.
Where is the "martial arts" you speak of?
This deviation from the martial arts genre makes it all the more interesting. The titular "samurai" is a samurai by philosophy only, certainly not in any cultural, aristocratic or martial sense. If ceremony and katanas and chonmagis and shoguns and kabutos and iajutsu and pagodas are all rendered silly or obsolete by the 20th century, what's left but the heart and soul?