Ghost Dog lives in a shack on top of an abandoned building and leads a simple life with his carrier pigeons. He wears a bright symbol of the Samurai on a thick chain and sports a briefcase filled with ancient weapons, pistols with silencers, and high tech gadgets. In another sharp contrast to the expectations for a hit man, Ghost Dog wanders the night and sleeps in a dark, formless sweatshirt and pants. His unkempt hair and placid but soulful expression connote both seeming inappropriateness and a strange ascetic distance from his trade. In an almost sweet touch, Ghost Dog communicates with his "master" exclusively via carrier pigeon. He is not averse to technology when it serves his mission. He hand solders amazing devices that open and start an array of beautiful autos he purloins to complete his missions.

Ghost Dog begins with no dialogue. Other characters speak, but Ghost Dog remains silent. We gain his perspective because his voice reads lines from his cherished translation of the Samurai code. His first words are too a young black girl who totes her favorite books in a pink plastic lunch pail. His best friend is a French ice cream truck vendor. Neither can speak in each other’s language, but they have a bond fraught with hilarity as the subtitles indicate that they are often saying the same thing. We are in on jokes that they don’t get.

Frankly, the plot complication that propels the mob into a search to hunt down and kill Ghost Dog never seems believable to us, but maybe with the many bizarre aspects of this movie, it is not so important that the plot points make sense.

This story has moments of violence and death, some sentimentally touching. One obvious message of the film indicates that, even when lived by strict codes of the Samurai and the mob, the manly propensity toward violence is ultimately tragic. The confrontation scene of the master and the Samurai at the end was cleverly executed and deeply moving. The gender of the two who would succeed the men also makes for an intriguing speculation.

Jarmusch uses every element to good effect. The voice over reading of Samurai code at first appears disengaging, but it proves to be the mesmerizing core of Ghost Dog’s character and the glue of the story. The universal but abstract truths of the code find an immediate application in Ghost Dog’s actions. Even though he is a hit man, Ghost Dog’s honor is intact, which makes him not only sympathetic, but also undefeatable. The dialogue is another ingeniously molded element and a classic example of Jarmusch’s unexpected humor. Ultimately, the most intriguing juxtaposition is the use of rap tunes as counterpoint to the action sequences and Ghost Dog’s contemplation. This is the first time we’ve witnessed a film that uses hard-core rap in a way that enhances the film as well as the lyrics.

Ghost Dog is in many ways a haunting and mesmerizing film.