"Actor: Gene Ruffini"

• Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai | DVD | (10/06/2002) from £12.00   |  Saving you £-2.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Forest Whitaker makes an unlikely modern samurai with his laser-sighted pistols, shabby street clothes, and oddly graceful gait--but then Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is an unusual film. Quirky, contemplative and at times absurd, it is just the kind of offbeat vision we have come to expect from the fiercely independent Jim Jarmusch (Stranger than Paradise, Dead Man). Whitaker is Ghost Dog, a mysterious New York hit man who lives simply on a tenement rooftop and follows a code of behaviour outlined in : Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (passages of this book are interspersed throughout the film). When the local mob marks him for death in a complicated code of Mafiosi-style honour, Ghost Dog sends a cryptic message to his foes. "That's poetry. The poetry of war", remarks mobster Henry Silva, with sudden respect upon reading the verse. He could be describing the ethereal beauty of Jarmusch's vision, full of wonderful imagery (a night drive across town seems to float in time) and off-centre humour. Though it briefly stalls in a series of assassinations (Jarmusch is no action director), it settles back into character-driven drama in a quietly epic showdown, equal parts samurai adventure, spaghetti western and existential crime movie. The film is likely too unconventional and offbeat for general audiences, but cult-movie buffs and Jarmusch fans will appreciate his idiosyncratic vision. He finds a strange sense of honour in the clash of Old World traditions, and salutes his heroes with a skewed but sincere respect. --Sean Axmaker

• Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (The Criterion Collection) | Blu Ray | (17/11/2020) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Gangster: The Yards, Brother, Ghost Dog | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The Yards:'The Yards' is a tense thriller set in the vast New York City subway yards. After serving time in prison for taking the fall for a group of friends Leo Handler (Mark Wahlberg) just wants to get his life back on track. So he goes to the one place he thinks he'll be safe: home. There he takes a job with his highly connected and influential uncle Frank (James Caan) and is reunited with his long-time friend Willie Gutierez (Joaquin Phoenix) and Willie's girlfriend Erica (Charlize Theron). But in the yards where his uncle now pulls the strings safe is not how they do business. Unwittingly he's drawn into a world of sabotage high stakes payoffs and murder. And the secret he discovers will make him the target of the most ruthless family in the city: his own. Now in the name of justice he'll have to do everything in his power to bring them down. Brother:In Japan the sworn brotherhood of the Yakuza is described as being 'thicker than the blood of kindred brothers'. With his life under threat disgraced Yakuza hard man Yamamoto escapes to Los Angeles in search of his half-brother Ken a small-time drug dealer. Unable to speak the language and confused by his surrounding Yamamoto teams up with Ken and his friend and fellow gang-member Denny. Soon Yamamoto finds himself back in the old routine. His ruthless efficiency in terrorising and killing rival gang members shocks even the blood hardened Americans and before long Yamamoto's gang is strong enough to join forces with a rival Japanese crime lord called Shirase. Ghost Dog:Ghost Dog lives above the world alongside a flock of birds in a homemade shack on the roof of an abandoned building. Guided by the words of an ancient Samurai text Ghost Dog is a professional killer able to dissolve into the night and move throughout the city unnoticed. When Ghost Dog's code is dangerously betrayed by the dysfunctional mafia family that occasionally employs him he must find a way to defend himself without breaking the code of the samurai.

• Jump Tomorrow | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  In this romantic comedy an unassuming Nigerian-American shys away from his arranged marriage and falls for a friendly young Spanish woman he meets at an airport in New York.