ghost dog

[Jasper Sharp]

I have not seen it, but I have heard on the grapevine that it lifts a
sequence from 
Seijun SUZUKI's BRANDED TO KILL - the assination attempt foiled by
butterfly.
As for American genre bending, I think the success of CROUCHING TIGER,
HIDDEN DRAGON 
all over the world shows that there are an awful lot of people getting sick
and tired
of the same old Hollywood product being churned out year after year.



-----Original Message-----
From: David Duncan [mailto:neku78 at hotmail.com]
Sent: 13 February 2001 18:24
To: kinejapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: related chanbure-eiga


Intellecuals,
     As a topic of discussion I'd like to ask if anyone has checked out Jim 
Jarmush's Ghost Dog.  As you may know my hunger for Japanese film is 
pinpointed on Samurai or Chanbura-Eiga films.  I'm fully aware that this 
film is American made.  I personally make no true distiction about where a 
film is released, rather I tend to connect genre's as a whole.  If you've 
seen Ghost, you know what a strange mix of characters this movie contains.  
Forest Whittaker(sp?) plays a great but typical lone-wolf type asassin.  His

character is definately Samurai, no question.  Yet to offset this, Jarmush 
also presents some very strange mobster-types for comic relief.  I found the

choice of characters to be a very ballsy move.  Most American Samurai movies

tend to be extremely generic, for instance check out American Samurai (good,

but typical).  That's probrobly why I liked this movie so much, it's a great

break from the regualar trend.  Did anyone else who had a chance to view 
this think along the same lines?  More importantly, is it possible to 
present an original Samurai movie to the American audience?  I know Japan 
has been successful in combining comedy and katana-slashing action, but are 
American audiences ready for this type of genre blending?
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