Ghost Dog: The Way of The Samurai - Plot

Plot

Ghost Dog (Whitaker) sees himself as a retainer of Louie (John Tormey), a local mobster, who saved Ghost Dog's life years ago. While living as a hired hitman for the Italian Mafia, he strictly follows Hagakure.

Louie tells Ghost Dog to kill a gangster, Handsome Frank, who is sleeping with the daughter (Tricia Vessey) of the mafia boss Vargo (Henry Silva). Ghost Dog arrives and kills the gangster, but does not realize the girl is also in the room at the time; he leaves her alive and exits. In order to avoid being implicated in the murder of a made man, the mobsters decide to get rid of Ghost Dog. Louie knows practically nothing about Ghost Dog, and the hitman communicates only by homing pigeon. The mobsters start by tracing all the pigeon coops in town. They find Ghost Dog's cabin atop a building and kill his pigeons. Ghost Dog realizes he must kill the entire mafia or otherwise they will kill him and his master.

During the day, Ghost Dog frequently visits the park to see his best friend, a Haitian ice cream salesman named Raymond (Isaach De Bankolé) who speaks only French. Ghost Dog doesn't understand French and Raymond doesn't understand English, but the two seem to understand each other. Ghost Dog also makes friends with a little girl named Pearline (Camille Winbush), to whom he lends a book — Rashōmon and Other Stories — he received from Vargo's daughter. Paralleling a major theme of Rashōmon, Louie and Ghost Dog have different accounts of the circumstances of their meeting: in Louie's flashback he shoots Ghost Dog's attacker in self-defense, while in Ghost Dog's flashback, Louie shoots the attacker just as the attacker is about to kill Ghost Dog.

Eventually, Ghost Dog attacks Vargo's mansion single-handedly and kills almost everyone he encounters, sparing only Louie and Vargo's daughter. Though Louie feels some loyalty to Ghost Dog, he also feels that he must avenge the murder of boss Vargo, but it was stated that Vargo's daughter ordered him to murder Ghost Dog. Louie finally confronts Ghost Dog at Raymond's ice cream stand with Raymond and Pearline watching, after he gave his copy of Hagakure to the latter. Ghost Dog is unwilling to attack his master and allows Louie to kill him. His last act is to give Louie the copy of Rashōmon and encourage him to read it.