Cultural References
The film has been interpreted by critics as an homage to Le Samouraï, a 1967 crime-drama by Jean-Pierre Melville starring Alain Delon. That movie opens with a quote from an invented Book of Bushido and features a meditative, loner hero, Jef Costello. In the same manner that Ghost Dog has an electronic "key" to break into luxury cars, Costello has a huge ring of keys that enable him to steal any Citroën DS. The endings share a key similarity. Moreover, the peculiar relationship between the heroes of both movies and birds, companions and danger advisers, is another common point.
The film contains a number of references to Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill, such as when a bird lands in front of Ghost Dog's rifle scope, referencing the incident with a butterfly in Suzuki's film. Ghost Dog shooting Sonny Valerio up the drain pipe is taken directly from Branded to Kill. The movie was adapted into a role-playing game by Canadian game publisher Guardians of Order. The game focused on two person (one player and one Game Master) group play and resource information about the movie and the real-life Mafia.
Read more about this topic: Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai
Famous quotes containing the word cultural:
“At times it seems that the media have become the mainstream culture in children’s lives. Parents have become the alternative. Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to it.”
—Ellen Goodman (20th century)