Forest Whitaker is Ghost Dog, a mysterious, pigeon-fond mafia hitman of few words who lives by the ancient samurai code of Bushido as well as the teachings of his paperback copy of Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. By day, Ghost Dog visits the local park to hang out with a French ice cream man – despite not understanding a word he says – and befriends a little girl named Pearline, lending his copy of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s Rashōmon. By night, our lone warrior is a cold, calculated and graceful orchestrator of death who one night spares a witness to one of his hits. He ends up paying for this mercy when the geriatric mafia family who hired him turn on him to wipe the slate clean.

Smouldering with atmosphere conjured by a lo-fi hip hop score courtesy of Wu-Tang Clan frontman RZA, Robby Müller’s exquisite shooting and Whitaker’s stoic demeanour, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a quiet, offbeat and supremely cool character study from Jim Jarmusch. Homaging Melville’s Le Samourai and Suzuki’s Branded to Kill, this solitary assassin’s tale slows down to meditate on violence, poetry and the cross-cultural melting pot of America. We're proud to present the New South Whales premiere of the new 4K restoration.