Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai & Samurai Jack

Sidey - Ghost Dog

Reegs: Welcome to Bad Dads Film Review. Does exactly what it says on the tin in that we're dads and we're bad at reviewing films. This week we're unsheathing ourselves in public to bring you Sword Week and fans of shows in which people discuss their favourite films, TV shows or books.

cultural influences related to a particular idea and then gradually highlighting a specific number of those choices or preferences. We'll be absolutely delighted as we chat about the top five swords. Following the no doubt rapier like wit of that section, we'll take a stab at reviewing Jim Jarmusch and Forrest Whittaker's 1999 poetic crime drama about cross cultural connection big mafia hair and swords in Ghost Dog, Way of the Samurai, and then we'll finish things up with a look at Samurai Jack.

All that's left to do is introduce the dad, starting with older than Excalibur and someone who's taken it all the way to the hilt more than once, it's Dan.

Sidey: dad.

Reegs: We've

got magnificent Romanian ADHD luddite Chris, convinced the world is gonna be populated with Steve Bashimi clones, with the process having started right in front of our faces with Bill Skarsgård.

And they're gonna slowly increase the number of them over the years, that's true. And then We have sidey thrilled to release his new boating themed podcast where you trip around Oxford looking for the massive, you know, water based craft you can find in what a massive punt. And that's on both platforms carrier and passenger pigeon.

And

Dan: then That'll be popular. Yeah.

Reegs: Hello.

Dan: hi.

Sidey: Good

carrier pigeon content this week on the pause. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Have you had any other content you've

Sidey: I've been away.

Dan: You've been away?

Sidey: been in French France.

Dan: You've been in French France. You've been in French France too. I have been in Ireland

Cris: I've

just been in Jersey,

Dan: what's that like?

Cris: Jersey's amazing. Especially now, this past week. Although I was really busy with work. Because I had to move a lot of stuff. But I have watched quite a few things.

Well, three movies.

Dan: Three

movies.

None of the ones we are gonna talk

Cris: Yeah, I know. Shocking.

Dan: it's

Sidey: What did you watch though?

Cris: I've watched a movie called Leroy, Texas.

Dan: Right.

Cris: Which, can't really talk about.

Dan: Oh, Paris,

Cris: it's no, it's Leroy, Texas. It's the only reason I watched it is because I've seen it on, it popped up in one of these streaming services and has Steve Zahn in it.

And I, I, I don't know why I don't know. He's not the greatest actor. I always find him really funny. Because he plays that silly kind

Sidey: of,

Cris: know, whatever. And in this one, he's a a private detective who tells

Dan: private deck.

Cris: tells this guy that his wife's cheating on him. And the guy just goes back to him. It's like, why would you do that?

Why would you tell me that I didn't hire you? I don't want to know. And then this guy who's just a random guy working in a hardware store,

some guy confuses him with a hired gun. gives him some money to kill someone and he actually ends up killing this guy. it's it's a Texas comedy American movie, which I quite enjoyed, but it's quite silly and it's got Steve Zahn

Dan: and disgusting.

Cris: I've

also watched a movie called White Tiger. It's an Indian movie.

Oh, did you? Okay.

Dan: It's, it's in the, in the slums, one guy kind of getting out of poverty and, and

Cris: he becomes a driver for this rich couple. And then this, these people are actually,

I've never been to India and I

would imagine that that's how it is. And he's doing that thing that you said where he kind of talks to the audience.

Sidey: right breaks the fourth wall.

Cris: Yes. Where he breaks the fourth wall. And it's, it's quite good.

He becomes the driver of this couple there in the end, but they're all educated, both educated in America and he, in the end, kind of through his story, you realize how corrupt in India is as well. And he kind of tells you about the caste system and all that stuff. And then in the end, he kills his boss and runs away with, I dunno, 5 million rupees or something, and he just moves to a different city.

And

Dan: in the book. Yeah,

Cris: Bangalore. Yeah. That's

Dan: he, he, he starts a taxi business or something.

Yeah.

Cris: And that's how it ends. And he emails the Chinese prime minister or something like that throughout his story. He just, while his story develops, it's written in an email to the Chinese prime minister to tell him about the Indian entrepreneur.

Dan: imaginary dialogue with the Oh, President Z, don't, don't you worry, I'm going to be doing this and next year and all the rest of it from, from the book. I'll be interested to see the film. I'd seen it out there on Netflix, I think, wasn't it?

Cris: so. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. Okay. I've not seen it myself though.

Cris: And I've watched a Ford versus Ferrari.

Dan: It

Sidey: Any good? It doesn't tempt me at all that.

Cris: It's actually, you know what, I don't even know how to drive and I actually enjoyed it.

Sidey: Okay.

Cris: I'm not going to tell you more if you ever want to watch it. I thought, I thought it was good. And it's also for me to say that it's a two hour and a half movie and I didn't fall asleep.

Dan: It's outrageous

Sidey: happened for a

Dan: that. That has not happened. Did you watch it in the daytime? Early? In the

Cris: No.

evening.

Sidey: Blimey.

Dan: Twice as, twice as powerful that I watched not too much to be honest, beyond the, the homework this week. Mainly football related content outside of, of the homework.

So I won't talk about

Sidey: Yeah, nothing for me outside of homework really. Too busy.

Reegs: too busy. I watched Infinity Pool, which was Brandon

Dan: right. That

Sidey: Oh, it's the Sky's God.

Dan: just before, it is

Reegs: No, just before, it is absolutely brilliant, that is just a strong, strong recommend

Sidey: Have you watched his first one?

Yeah, the poster looks terrifying

Reegs: I'm gonna watch that as well.

But Yeah, strong

recommend for Infinity Pool, maybe even pod

Cris: podcom. Is that, is that a horror? Yeah. Oh, okay.

Dan: Oh, I'm out. Okay moving swiftly onwards then that was the taylor swift link play the music big fan of the pod. No, none of that's true.

Sidey: Top five was a long time ago and we we did.

Dan: Top five was years

Sidey: It's all done. We're really just ready to go with this week's top five, I think, unless anyone objects.

Dan: Well, let's let's unsheath those swords Remember

Sidey: Top 5 Swords. There are a lot of swords out

Reegs: Yeah. I have gone for like, specific swords rather than like, tropes related to sword stuff, really.

Sidey: Go on, give us an example then.

Reegs: Of a specific sword. I'll tell you the first one I thought of, but it's from a video game, but I'm sure you'll let me have

Sidey: I've got a video

Reegs: It's Cloud Strife's The Buster Sword.

Do you remember the absolutely obscenely big sword that he used to carry in Final Fantasy VII?

Sidey: Oh, yeah. Yeah. it

Reegs: just ridiculously big. That's what I want to see in a sword. A sword that's like five times as big as a person being carried. So that's, that's what I've gone for as my first one. Can you believe it?

Dan: sword. I can't believe it. It's just like you Have you got one

Sidey: I do, the first one that I thought of, or it was certainly one of the first ones I thought of, was Green Destiny. Do you remember that sword?

Reegs: Yes.

Sidey: It was the sword from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

It's

Reegs: integral to

Dan: hell. Yeah.

Sidey: it is the,

Dan: yeah. But it's been a, it's been a few years since I watched that film.

Sidey: Greve de Lecq has been in the news a lot. That's a local beach here. Because it's got hideous pollution and you'll get E. coli if you go swimming. Although I think I did read that it was now safe to swim, but you wouldn't want to be an early adopter on that, I don't think.

We used to go cliff jumping there a lot. One of the Jumps, we christened green destiny for some reason. I can't remember why so

Dan: was certain death if you didn't

Sidey: and it was green. It had red grass on it. So that's why that one has a special place in my memory

It's a great film as

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: well um,

I'm gonna talk about Highlander, the, the sword of the McLeod family um, yeah. McLeod, McLeod. I mean, let's not get too pedantic over, over the names of Irish battlers in 1536.

Sidey: It's a katana he has, isn't

Reegs: That's the one that's given to him by, You've seen Connery, yeah. The McLeod family, I think, have their own sword as well, because there's a good load of sword content

Dan: And the McLeod family's inscribed on the guard and everything.

Reegs: Yeah, whereas the other one, the one you're talking about, it's like ivory and it's got a dragon's head on the end.

Yeah,

Sidey: I think they're reboosting it. Aren't

Reegs: Yeah, it's prime for a reboot, that series, surely.

Dan: I mean,

it's a brilliant story and characters and it just keeps on going and going.

But having watched the Christopher Lambert one not so long ago I was still impressed. I still thought it was a really good movie. So,

Sidey: got the soundtrack in here? Yeah,

Dan: a queen soundtrack

Sidey: to

Cris: I don't really know the name of it, but the Frodo sword, the one that glows in the dark. Sting. is that what it's

Sidey: it glows if there's orcs

around.

Dan: around.

Cris: Is that, can I take that?

Sidey: Absolutely. Is

Reegs: Is that a good idea for it to collect it?

I suppose it's

Sidey: They use it quite a lot in the movie to tell you.

Dan: it to glow? I suppose it's a warning system. Andrew. That's

Reegs: Andrew.

Dan: one That's

Sidey: That's the one that's in pieces that they have that that in the

prologue, they cut off

Reegs: three pieces or whatever,

doesn't

Sidey: Sauron's hand finger.

and then they have to reforge it. The elves have to reforge it. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Dan: And they had another one. They had a glam, glam ring glam doing

Sidey: That's that's,

Dan: it was only used twice when Turgen welded it and the fall of Golin. And it was missing for 6,000 years until Gandalf found

Sidey: its Gandalf one in the Hobbit, isn't it?

Rolls, yeah. Yeah.

Dan: And claimed the sword for

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. It's a pretty beautiful sword that.

Reegs: I'm going for two cartoon swords, is that alright? I've got the Sword of Omens from Thundercats, which had the Eye of

Dan: That is, that is,

Sidey: beyond sight.

Yeah.

Dan: that is the sword,

Sidey: it in Family Guy?

Reegs: Yeah, yeah.

Sidey: And it had

Reegs: it had the toy as well, because it used to get bigger, didn't it, lol? And you could get the toy, you could, like, flick it like that and it got bigger, do you remember? The toy or

Sidey: Yeah. I didn't have that one as a

Dan: one. Did you see the family guy? He

Sidey: bit in

Dan: Sight

Sidey: middle to get Sight

Dan: very much the same

kind

Sidey: very

Reegs: And very much the same kind of concept of the bad guy being obsessed with the good guy's weapon.

Was the power sword or sometimes known as the sword of grey skull

Sidey: That's what I thought it was called, but then when I was researching it today, it

Reegs: power sword.

Sidey: like, I don't remember ever being called that.

Reegs: No, but apparently so.

Sidey: Yeah. It was quite a distinctive looking sword.

Reegs: It was very distinctive and it was channel. It was channeling that that allowed Adam to turn into I forget the guy's name, but

he meant that's

Dan: right.

Would a, would a a Star Wars Sabre be?

Sidey: If it was your go absolutely

Dan: Right. Okay. Well, it's not so

Sidey: He he channels that not just for himself, but he also like lightning strikes Cringer to turn him into battle cat

Reegs: a, like, battle cat, yeah, yeah.

Sidey: Since like a little bit like animal cruelty when he's doing that

Reegs: when he's

Sidey: Go on then Dan

Dan: well II was only going to talk about Star Wars lightsabers. Are they kind of

Reegs: kind of sword? So some people could have that

Dan: some people could have that if they wanted.

Reegs: The red one, the blue one.

Dan: the blue

ones.

Sidey: the Sith tend to have red ones, don't they?

Yeah,

But then they also then embellish them. So obviously In the first three movies, they were just swords and then darth maul famously in the trailer his

Reegs: Has

Sidey: an extender He had the double and then in the series now you get spinny round ones and

Reegs: You've got Kylo Ren at the cross guard with the exhaust ports at the side and then of course you've got the Darksaber in the Mandalorian as well. That's going to come to the big screen I think, isn't it? Yeah, I think there's a Mandalorian movie coming, I

Sidey: think. Right. Okay.

Reegs: So yeah, a lot of

Sidey: The Jedi, they had multiple colors and I remember most wind memory had a purple

Reegs: because

Sidey: real excited about he wanted purple one. Yeah.

Dan: That purple sword, who'd have thought it.

Sidey: I had a video game one go on the master sword from Zelda. Alright. Which I'm currently playing. Nice. It's, it's, you have to go through a lot of hoops to collect it. And it's not as powerful as a lot of other things in the game.

But it's a necessary thing to do in the game. So

Dan: Dungeons and Dragons would definitely have a sword as well.

Reegs: definitely have a sword

Dan: one of them, got a cape that went invisible.

Have you

got any there chris, have you got any

Cris: I've got the sword from a movie that is very close to the heart of Peter. The Atlantean sword from the movie corner, the barbarian,

which also if anyone's in the UK, we're not getting paid promotion here, but the night shop the night shop.

com. Shop in the United Kingdom sells the Atlantean swords in silver, bronze or steel blade for around 300

Dan: pounds.

But anyway, the Athenian sword is

Cris: But anyway, the Atlantean sword is the sword that Conan yields to kill everyone in

Dan: kill everyone.

Reegs: O'Brien

Dan: Conan O'Brien.

King Leonidas used the sword,

Reegs: C chocolatier

Dan: in the, in the in the Battle of Thermopylae where only

Reegs: ther opoly, Jesus that's butchering

Dan: Where 300 Spartans fought against the the Persian army, you know,

Reegs: what was his sword though?

Dan: his sword was

Reegs: called Clive.

Dan: It was badass, I believe no, I don't know the name of that, that

Sidey: Because quite a lot of them are named.

Dan: sword. I think it would be called the Spartan

Sidey: Okay.

Dan: for Sparta.

Reegs: Well, a lot of them in Game of Thrones had a name, Jonathan Longclaw, if you remember that. That

Sidey: was john snurr

Reegs: Jon Snow gifted to him by Joel Mermont and it could kill White Walkers. So that's pretty good. And I think nothing more iconic than him holding that thing up as was it Ramsey Bolton's armies just all come and he's

Sidey: like battle of the bastards.

Yeah

Reegs: And

Arya Stark has needle. Yeah. Yeah. Which she also uses to kill people and such. And then there were, there was widows, whale and oath keeper and all sorts of cool named swords in that.

Dan: Yeah, I was thinking there's quite a long list of sword names that we

Sidey: Well, we've done a lot of samurai stuff, and I think of that as being a katana one Kill Bill, The Bride.

She, well, she starts off with just a kind of plain one, and then she kind of,

She moves up, doesn't she, to Hattori Hanzo's

Reegs: Hanzo sword. Yeah, that's one for her. She's making revenge

Sidey: makes one for her so that she can avenge stuff. And everyone gets real excited about how good he is at making swords.

cool. Yeah so that's good. Michonne in The Walking Dead, she also has a katana, which she has,

has

she cut off the jaws of the zombies that she has in chains when we first meet her? She's pretty badass. That is also, started up again is it? The spin off with her and

Reegs: Yes! Yeah, it has,

Sidey: Who's interested in that? No one.

Reegs: one. I don't know. People must

Sidey: Not me. And

oh god, must be others. Blade,

Reegs: Blade, he's got the sword of the day walker with the handle that

Sidey: does stuff.

Reegs: does things to your hand. Thanos has a pretty big sword and I think he twats Captain America's Shield in half with

Sidey: it. He does, yeah.

His looks a bit like the Final Fantasy 7 one.

Reegs: Yeah. Mr.

Dan: Smee? From Peter Pan.

Reegs: Peter Pan.

Dan: Yeah, he's got a kind of curly cutlass

Reegs: Oh yeah. Okay. That's a good one.

Dan: Yeah, he will, he will, he will take that out and,

Reegs: I haven't really got any Cutlass action.

Dan: Yeah, well, he would twist it into the wound after stabbing his opponents to really get,

Reegs: are you seen all those Pirates of the Caribbean movies?

He must be a famous Cutlass in that or something. Is one of them about a Cutlass?

Sidey: Well Zorro is, that's a rapier I suppose, is it? Yeah,

Reegs: It's more fancy. But that's still, that's a good one. Yeah, that's a

Sidey: Yeah, he does the sh sh sh sh, does the Z for Zorro, yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: And did you ever see oh, you were talking about Katana. Did you see Suicide Squad?

Yes. They had the character Katana and she had the sword Soul Taker

Sidey: That's right.

Reegs: it was actually involved in the climax of that terrible, terrible

Sidey: The first one? Yeah. Yeah, it's garbage, isn't it?

Cris: I've got one that he although I dunno if it's a sword in V for vendetta, is it more like a KY kind of sword?

Sidey: Yeah, Raphael uses them in the Turtles movies. It's a

Reegs: Sai, isn't it? That's called a Sai.

Yeah, it's like

Sidey: I think it's more pointy than it is. Slashy.

Cris: So it's

Reegs: You have two of them as well? Usually. I can't say that.

Sidey: I don't think so.

Reegs: Okay.

Cris: How about the three musketeers?

Sidey: Yes.

Cris: They don't have names for the swords. I don't

Reegs: Again, a very distinct, it's a fencing type rapier, isn't it? It's a, it's a sword.

Cris: Yeah, but is that not a sword?

Sidey: Yeah. It is. There you go for that for sure. Yeah.

Reegs: Is it time to commit our best swords to the vault

Sidey: I've kept one back just for this moment.

Reegs: you? Oh, that's good.

When someone does that.

Dan: Well, I'm, I'm gonna go with Smee and Johnny Corkscrew Because I think that's a pretty nasty way to go to be cork brewed into a sword.

Sidey: Yeah, that is pretty bad Riggs,

Reegs: also kept one backside. I did the same thing. Kikuchiyo's sword from Seven Samurai. We were talking about that in the last couple of weeks because of Magnificent Seven.

And it got me to looking up and reading about that film and stuff. And I saw a picture of it again. It reminded me again. It's one of those huge, colossal two handed swords.

Sidey: He has

Reegs: trouble wielding. So yeah, Kikuchiyo's sword from Seven Samurai.

Cris: For any of our nerd listeners who are really into their gaming, in all the game universe, the Archangel Gabriel has a sword, and it's an Imperial Celestial Archangel Sword.

So I'll put that in.

Reegs: All right.

Sidey: I'm going for the Singing Sword from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Reegs: Ah, that's good.

Sidey: Animated sword action. It doesn't look that sharp actually. But it can sing. None of the other ones could. So it's in. have your nominations.

Reegs: nominations.

Dan: This week's film you nominated

Sidey: I sure did.

Dan: and it was one that I'd seen before

Sidey: It's a Jim Jarmusch movie.

Dan: yeah I like a Jim Jarmusch

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Well famously we all loved Patterson.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: Of his,

Dan: it was particularly Pete I remember gave it top five status for all time but

Sidey: It's Jim Jarmusch, it's Forrest Whittaker, and it's also RZA.

Dan: Yo Yo in

Sidey: Sound

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: It's ghost dog colon the way of the samurai.

Reegs: Is this kind of like crime drama, but mixed up with all these different genre elements and

Sidey: Pigeons

of it starts off with a shot of a pigeon.

Reegs: Yeah

And Forrest Whitaker reading from the Hagger Kray. Which is a kind of text by a Buddhist monk, Yamamoto Sunitomo. And it's views on the Bushido and the warrior code. And he's talking about you've got to live every day as if you're, you know, in the shadow of death,

Dan: talking about you've got to live every day as if

Reegs: shit everywhere.

Dan: know, in the shadow of death, essentially.

It's shit everywhere. Anti fouling that and washing

Sidey: Yeah, you've got to stay on top of that.

Dan: you gotta really stay on top of that. Yeah but he's got some passenger pigeons. He's got

Sidey: passenger pitch

Dan: We'll come to that later, yeah, and Yeah,

you're right. He's he's reading this book and it's all kind of a very

Reegs: He lives a very sort of sparse life in this shack and you can see like his homages to his samurai code and the

Dan: the Bushido.

Reegs: And you also,

Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: Cornrows.

Reegs: And he's got such a distinctive look for his Whittaker cause he is big and intimidating, but there's also a kind of gentle quality

Dan: Yeah, and a fluidity to his movements as well. He goes kind of very slow and deliberate

Sidey: Well, yeah. And he's very stoic in this and he doesn't, we don't hear from him for ages. It,

Dan: compelling to watch.

You know, even reading a book. He's a fantastic actor. And yeah. So he is this, this guy. He, he is Ghost Dog. Who is, by all accounts, a, a Samurai. Paying back a debt to somebody

Sidey: plot.

As it is, it's pretty straightforward in terms of what actually happens in the movie, is that Ghost Dog is a Mafia hitman.

He operates through one contact

Reegs: one

Sidey: and has very specific demands on how that interaction works. He only communicates with him through

Reegs: That'll all come out in a conversation right after the beginning because what the first like introduction to him is that he has to go off and do this job to take down Handsome Jack and we don't know. So his name Handsome Jack something like

Sidey: something handsome jack handsome joe something

Dan: George

Reegs: handsome Frank. That's right. And I can't remember the actor's name, but you know him from a million different movies.

Dan: And he does the job and there's a girl there.

Reegs: a girl there. Yeah.

Dan: And he walks around, she sees him, although he, she, she didn't have to see him cause he originally shot Hanson Frank behind a wall.

But then he, he goes round and she's just thrown down a book, Rashomon. And he, she starts a conversation with him and he doesn't look like he wants to kill her,

Sidey: to kill her, but Yeah, you know through it, I

Dan: You know, threat. I didn't come to kid a girl. Yeah. You know, wasn't part of the, the, the plan, the code,

Reegs: Well, and also he's intrigued by

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. Because the exchange of books is a strong recurring like theme in the movie.

Yeah. And so yeah, he lets her go and then we we're sort of introduced to the, the mobsters. Now this is just a great bit because there are all these, like larger than life. They're almost like David Lynch type caricatures

Sidey: the scene where the three of them are

Reegs: this bit

Sidey: is fucking David Lynch all over, I thought.

Yeah, yeah.

Reegs: like David Lynch doing the Sopranos basically as these three guys like they talk about ghost dog is named.

They've got an uncommon like knowledge of hip hop culture. So one of them Sonny Valerio is like well into public enemy and Flavor Flav and starts busting out some

Dan: Some

rhymes.

You've got the old boy who says nothing up until here he go.

PASSENGER

PIGEONS!

Sidey: Soprano all over, isn't

Dan: Yeah, it's F fantastic, and the guy in the middle, Who, you, Yeah, I think that was his name, Who, who suddenly just goes off on one About all kinds of nonsense,

Reegs: They're talking about the names and stuff, that's how they go on to it.

Dan: Yeah,

Reegs: on his face.

Every single one of the houses he sees, he drops outside. Yeah, yeah,

Sidey: Yeah, yeah, so, like, you know, you've got this

kind

Reegs: kind of poverty thing going on that's affecting the Mafia and it's just this bunch of old guys like fucking Sammy the Snake and Joe Rags and Big Ang and all this,

like.

Sidey: and Joe Rags and Big

Reegs: Louie, Yeah,

Sidey: all that, like.

Ghost dog's gotta fucking go for this.

a minute,

but you fucking asked me to,

Dan: asked me to do this guy. Yeah, but we can't have somebody killing one of our own, like, he's got to go, even

Sidey: And they, they referenced the girl and it's Mr. VA's daughter. Yeah. And he said, well, you know, he didn't, he didn't harm her.

And then it's funny, he says it's the first thing he really says, isn't it? The, the boss man? He says, well, if, if he had, you'd be fucking dead. And he's really intimidating. Yeah. And he's obviously shitting himself, Louie, isn't he? He's like,

Dan: Yeah, so he gives so he gives up all the information, to

Reegs: which is really bizarre.

like he, he does a number of like killings and he's only paid once a year on the first

Sidey: of autumn. Yeah, autumn. Yeah, not a calendar day.

Reegs: Yeah. They're all looking at him like, what the fuck? And he's like, I had you talk to him. Well, by pigeon, like

Dan: The day he says the day that I I came he just turned up on my door

Sidey: we get a

little flashback, don't we?

Of him being a ghost dog, Forrest Wicker being, looks like a racial beating. He's

about,

Dan: Yeah,

Sidey: there's a metal pole, isn't there? They're, they're beating him probably to death and Louis sees him and says, what the fuck? And

one of the

Reegs: sees them and

Sidey: And he, he's dead. He shoots him and obviously saves ghost dog and not straight away, but he comes back to him once he's tooled up and got the skills and says, right, I, you know, I'm in your debt.

I will repay that by executing people for you.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's kind of the, the agreement and obviously, it's the way that he, he gets by and lives as well. And he's they're being described to these mafia guys who are just looking more and more bizarre. I mean, it's a great scene and and you just hear these little one liners and the way that they're presented and performed by these.

Three very different characters that are

all mafia

Sidey: It's probably sat there thinking, well, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna get fucking whacked here. Like, they're

Dan: But they're intrigued enough to go right let's go and send sort of sammy the legs down there and What a bit of fuck check him out

Reegs: sort of sat on their legs, get on their knees and check him out.

Sidey: on volume 21. Yeah, always. And we should

Reegs: not doing that.

Sidey: the, the, the pacing of the film, like it's very considered. Yeah. It'll pause for us and Ghost Dog. He's reading and us to be read some of the

Dan: Yeah, because that happens every now and again,

Sidey: Sort of like a chapter marker.

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: And occasionally we'll see a ghost dog like, you know, practicing some sort of martial art and the camera goes into this kind of fluid I don't know, like it's like there's, it's on a delay, you know, so you get sort

Reegs: has a kind of

Sidey: Yeah. It's a theory or sort of quality and it takes its time to tell the story.

Reegs: Yeah. And you do linger on the background a lot. And we fill that in with like Marlowe Stansfield and a load of bloods, all like distinctively dressed in red.

There's like little stories of life, like one guy is gonna be like an attempted mugging on the way home. It's like an old man carrying his shopping and suddenly drops his bags and just does this amazing like roundhouse kick on this

Sidey: Yeah There's yeah, there's some guys in the park. Who just mc'ing over some beats ghost dog just watch it and they everyone seems to know him and respect him they say like peace and love and respect ghost dog as they walk past and just chill and eat an ice cream

Reegs: Yeah

and well eating ice cream with Raymond an important character a French way speak is Haitian

Dan: Right. Like, Haitian?

And,

Reegs: he only speaks French and unwittingly, this is amazing, this, because unwittingly they're both saying the same thing just neither knows which is just incredible.

Dan: Yeah,

no, it's, it's a brilliant interaction, but the, the net started, he starts closing down a bit and he senses a heightened Because well, he, he realizes

Sidey: send some people, don't they, round to the, the pigeon coop?

Dan: And first they, they go up on the roof, these two mobsters, idiots. And they're not sure, they just know it's a black guy, and he was told to shoot anything that looks like him. So when another black

Sidey: No, first of all, it's the native

Reegs: it's

Sidey: It's not, they, they, this massive guy, he looks like a

Dan: that's right, they go two or three times. So the first time is, he's, he's like the guy out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's

Sidey: yeah, the chief, he looks like

Dan: the, the huge chief

Sidey: And they're like, well, that's not the right guy. They're sort of talking to each other and they're like, well, maybe just kill him anyway. And they're like, no, and they shoot a pigeon. And he says, you stupid fucking white man, which they don't like.

I thought, well, they're

Dan: he's kind of holding, no, come on, it's not a guy, we don't need this sort of heat here, right, we've got, there's no fear, he's just like stroking a, the big chief's just stroking a pigeon.

Sidey: they kill. I think he was maybe on the next roof

Dan: on the next roof over and he was just like back to him. Oh, what lovely morning, you know He was like then it was the pigeons were just on the roof and

Reegs: It clearly wasn't an assassin.

Dan: Clearly not he's like an old boy. He was like what what and they just shot him because he was black. And they go, I don't think that was the guy.

And they should leave him there.

Sidey: and they kill all the pigeons. They

Reegs: do.

Dan: Yeah

Sidey: That's not gonna sit well.

Reegs: No. The ghost dog is very sad when he comes home.

And

it's really the final straw really, isn't it? This is where he realizes that he's got to go after

Sidey: after Vargo.

Reegs: Yeah. So he does this he like follows this fat guy in this girl after out of a club, doesn't he?

And then takes him into an alley and strips them and gets their clothes and steals their car and heads off out to where Vargo and his men are holed up.

Dan: Yeah, that's

right. Although I don't think he he steals their car. I think he's got his own He just takes their their

Reegs: Yeah, he's got

Dan: Yeah, yeah, he's got a different car. He's got that that contraption I wasn't sure if it was the same car. It was a different car. He just kind of Starts it with

this

Sidey: got a gizmo that

Dan: automatic

Sidey: I think it replicates whatever signal needs to be sent.

Dan: by this point

Reegs: because I think by this point he's had the interaction with Louie, hasn't he? 'cause Louie's come to see him.

Dan: Louis's come to see him. It starts with Louis, because there's a great, like, long one

Reegs: it starts with Louie because there's a great, like long one take as he comes around the wall and his friend like, yeah.

Pulls up and pulls up with a gun and he

Sidey: and he takes

Reegs: out of his

Sidey: his gun out of his pocket. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, he

Dan: So he shoots

he shoots Louis in the shoulder and

Reegs: Well, cause I think this is where he like, he explains it from his perspective is where we get his flashback to the, to that event. Right? I

Dan: Yeah, it's around

Reegs: And because he remembers the same encounter that we saw earlier, but from his perspective Like it was just a purely racially motivated beating that the gun wasn't turned on him.

Louie intervened in a kind of like honorable way to save him. So it's like this theme that's in Rashomon of like different interpretations of what happened at a key event. Yeah. So

Dan: perspectives, yeah.

Different

Reegs: exactly.

Sidey: So they're gonna have to go all out and kill everyone. Yeah. Or they're gonna be

Dan: and he goes, he goes on top to to the big boss's house and he's kind of circling it, isn't he? And

Reegs: it's disguised as a reel to Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dan: He's, he's got the, the, the sighter going out and he seems to have a shot and then the bird kind of lands on his gun and he, oh, he's, he's amazed by that.

And he, but then he's lost the shot. And what a bit, the bit I really like then is like, a samurai doesn't hesitate, you know, he's just like, his, his forward momentum will carry him so no time like the present. And he just bowls straight in there in the car then and he goes to pretend he's a reality, doesn't

Reegs: Yeah, Bob Solo, I think he says his name is.

Dan: And he goes, right, I'm gonna go and check

Reegs: He's like, can I get out, stretch my legs? He's like, you stay in the car there. Like

Dan: Bob Solo.

Reegs: they're obviously desperate for the money. If it is, they can't afford to just gun him down, even though they know they're looking for a black guy with cornrows.

Like,

Dan: And the nerve of somebody just turning up that they've been after and you know, it's They're not sure what to think but they they're not giving a lot of time to think because he's suddenly

realizes,

right that's it and he just, as soon as one guy closes the door, he just nails the other two guys outside Yeah With his gun, super

Reegs: pretty efficient in this bit as he takes down a load of different guys, actually. The best really is the climax scene when he comes into the room where Vargo and his conciliary, whatever and what is it? He goes, it's the fucking Birdman! And then he has a heart attack and just

Sidey: heart

Dan: yeah. Yeah,

yeah. Ghost Doctor is

Sidey: Ghost Dog does a thing, a little flourish when he's shot someone with his gun.

Yeah. Not like the old western where they switch it around the finger, but more like you would do with a sword, and he just goes swish swish swish with his gun and then puts it away. I think some people didn't like that. But, I enjoyed it.

Reegs: Yeah, no,

Dan: there's lots of little kind of, frills around the edges of his movements and and the whole film really.

I mean, it was all got to this stage. I mean, he's taken 20 guys

Reegs: he takes the big boss down, doesn't he? Shoots him in his chair and he just kind of sits down and dies there.

Sidey: Well, he's still got Sonny Valerio.

Reegs: Well, he's got, he leaves Louis and some other guy alive. Sonny wasn't even there. He was somewhere else cause he goes to kill him later. And the girl he's seen her there as well.

Dan: her again, doesn't he? Yeah.

Reegs: And we're laughing at a lot of it, but it's not really light. You're not laughing at a lot of it, although it is quite a funny movie. Sometimes.

Sidey: especially Sonny's death scene, I really did laugh at it. That's just funny, there's no getting around that.

So he goes to Sonny's gaff, and he's prancing around,

I don't

know, he's had a shower and he's getting ready to go out or whatever he's doing but he's got Pubic Enemy on again and he's busting out some Flavor Flav.

 Ghost Talk goes underneath, it goes underneath his, his gaff. Yeah. In the basement or wherever he is and he's got all the pipe work there and he unders the pipe just as Sonny's like using the tap and he's like what the fuck's going on no water and he's like looking down the plug and he just sees this red light and Ghost Dog's got his gun with the laser sight straight up through the pipe and as Sonny looks over he just shoots him right in the face blood all over the sink yeah it's great

Reegs: That's a homage to another movie that I have seen as well but I can't remember the name but I did have it somewhere written down but anyway.

Dan: Remember the name. But I did have it somewhere

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

But what we haven't really talked about is his relationship with Purine as well.

A little French girl that you met in the

Sidey: park. Yeah.

Reegs: He's reading Wind In, she's reading Wind in the

Dan: She's been told by her mom that,

he hasn't got any friends and

you know, he's a bit strange and everything. But She wants to share the fact she's reading all these books with him, I guess, and he puts her on to a couple of others and he ends up giving her Rashomon to read and says, Oh, let me know what you think of it.

And this is all going on around the, the scenes with the ice cream truck and everything. And you get these, yeah, these confused

Sidey: It goes to show him a guy Who's building a boat on top of his building? He's like how the fuck's gonna get it out of

Dan: Yeah. So she's going to

become important, Perlene, towards

Reegs: So she's going

to become important, Perlene, towards the end because it's in front of her and Raymond that you know, this kind of tra the inevitable, I guess, tragic end of Ghost Dog occurs having like, I mean, he

Dan: Having gunned down half the mafia in the city,

Louis still realizes as his handler, and ultimately he's responsible.

He's going to get it anyway. If this guy doesn't get it, Die. Then another family from another city is gonna be wanting to take the honor and, and everything forward. So he's got to kind of finish the

Reegs: Well, and it's at her order, as we'll find out as well, the daughter

Dan: well that's it. Yeah.

Reegs: she's driving it all.

So she has, you know, ghost dog, gunned down in front of Perlene, not long after he's bumped into the RZA.

Sidey: Yeah, just as a little bow peace and love. I'll put whatever it is.

He says. Yeah

Reegs: And then he is, like, gunned down as,

Sidey: As He empties his

Reegs: He empties his gun of bullets, so he

Sidey: won't be able to I mean, Louis is some shot, he didn't fucking miss any of these, and he keeps going, moving forward. He

Dan: He he actually shot him one more time in the same

Reegs: same place. He said

Dan: said, don't want to make too many holes in you. So,

Sidey: I think it's like four times I think Louis has to shoot him and then he's just down on the ground and bleeding out and you're like, oh, sad.

Reegs: forward and bleeding out.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: Pulls the trigger does she I can't remember whether she does this certainly obviously is suggested at the end as she's reading the Hagakura that she is going to potentially also be inspired by the Bushido.

Dan: I don't, I don't think that she pulls a trigger, but I don't know. It kind of ends there, doesn't it?

Sidey: it? Oh, we get the limo with daughter of Mr. Vargo. Who's now the, the matriarch of the, running the family business. And that's the end.

Dan: end, yeah. I really, really enjoyed I

Sidey: was good. I could understand if someone watched it and didn't get it. It does, it's quite slow pace wise. You know, the story itself is very simplistic. If you take all the stuff around the outside away, you know, a guy does something wrong and has to save his life by killing some people.

Reegs: save his life by killing people. Forrest Gump is really good at it.

Sidey: First week. really good in it. Cause he doesn't speak. I think it's like 37 minutes, something like that before he has anything to say. And he's still able to carry the movie it has.

So we watched blind fury and we were, we didn't really get some of the comedic moments. This doesn't have obviously anything like that sort of comedic content, but it does have a few little flourishes and it works in this. Yeah. Yeah,

Dan: it wasn't a laugh a minute film and it wasn't full action all the time. And it wasn't so slow paced the whole way through Evo. You know, it had real kind of, pauses and, and reflection as his films do.

I think they just

Sidey: Right. So that's the thing is, is Jim Jarmusch it's written, directed, produced by a large, you know, all him. So he then can do whatever he wants. You know, it's independent filmmaking. I guess it gives you that opportunity to, you know, no one's calling the shots apart from you. So

Dan: And I, I don't know if you've got the metrics on how much this cost

Sidey: It was thrown together for a mere two million.

So remember when Blind Fury was ten million?

Dan: in 1989. And this

Sidey: This is 99 and it was two million dollars.

Dan: 10 years later,

Sidey: And it made 10. 6.

Dan: okay,

Sidey: it's decent.

Dan: it is decent,

yeah,

Reegs: it was quite hard to get a hold of for a little while. You know, it was, yeah.

Dan: we often say, oh, that's decent. I mean, the money's important, but sometimes it doesn't matter if a film was, you know, is lost

Sidey: We just want it to do well enough that they can keep making stuff

Dan: Yeah, of course. That's it. You

Sidey: I

Dan: what it gives you

Reegs: Oh, no, for me, this was absolutely brilliant. Like, this is top tier. I really, really enjoyed this because this was a particular mashup of stuff. That I really like, like, I already really like the Wu Tang, I already really like the sort of ideas of like cross cultural and genre mashups and all this stuff, like, and large and like, this is like, bang, bang, bang, I really,

Dan: it's a great film to have written this one, I think, you know, because it does seem kind of simple enough that you know, the plot and everything. The vision to just put all the characters together which make it for me like the italian guys they gave us sort of the the laugh I I guess in a movie but not with much just with The way they wasn't expecting them to be so fucking

Sidey: be so fucking wacko.

They're making films that cost X amount, they're just flops. Even like, Furiosa came out, got wall to wall, like, great reviews. Massive bomb, like, it's just completely flops. This cost two million, just make more, just make more of this sort of stuff. Like, it's just

Dan: don't

Sidey: 300, they don't need

$300 million movies to just like make so better. I play every a while, but

Reegs: that's the movie

Dan: million dollar

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: strong recommend.

Reegs: Strong recommend.

Dan: we've now just dimmed the lights a little we're coming

Cris: can't really

Dan: it's, it's, it's almost bedtime and it's time for the children's part. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah it was quite easy to find sword based content because we've got Samurai Jack

Dan: it up against anything else? Any other sword? I mean, no,

Sidey: well, I had heard of this. So I, I just went, I just gravitated straight to it. So there was no competition really.

Dan: And we went straight in at

Sidey: season one, episode seven, I think it is the three blind archers, and I chose this because it had very high, Score on IMDB.

Dan: and

Reegs: And correlated strongly with Blind Fury as well. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: so this it was almost Like a Mr. Man production where they just show one Kind of still frame of a cartoon or repeat it over and over again.

It's very simple drawings, but It's not kind of same animation

Reegs: No,

the backgrounds, it's quite simple.

Dan: simple but like

Reegs: are often quite static and a bit abstract. And the animation, the characters themselves don't have outlines. They're just like the color of things that they

Dan: Yeah.

So, I like the animation. It worked, you know, really well and the, the detail they did have in like leaves in the tree they were just done really well.

And

Sidey: yeah. And as, as this particular episode progresses, they'll, I assume they do in all of them, but it'll hone in on like particular details.

So there was a great bit with snowflakes in this and then the arrows, 'cause this is all about the arches in this one,

Reegs: Yeah,

Sidey: not the radio four Yeah. Play.

Dan: A castle with a well on top that holds the power to grant a wish. So an army has gone down there and it's a huge army. You see the little bunny

Reegs: it's like robot vikings,

Dan: robot Viking kind of thing. And there's loads of them yet.

Reegs: loads of them, yet

Sidey: Because there's only three

Reegs: out. There's only three

Dan: he, he, he comes back and he's talking about it sat on a big throne, isn't he? And he's talking to this

Sidey: how they were defeated.

Reegs: defeated.

Dan: he's just saying we, you know, I'll never forget the arrows. They came down like rain and,

Sidey: 'cause the rate of fire is impressive. They seem to be able to fire.

Reegs: Oh, thousands and thousands. 'cause there's thousands and thousands of robot vikings and many thousand more

Dan: And

then and then he's kind of told by the guy who owns the place or the cook or whatever to get off that, that seat, you know, you don't belong on there. And he just sort of goes, Oh yeah. And he gets a Muppet and a Bok, a

Sidey: and a bock.

Reegs: A bucket and a mop. Yeah, cause he's the janitor at the restaurant exactly. And he's, he's just telling the story. And, but Jack over here's, and we've already been told in the intro, the sort of backstory to Jack, even if you didn't know it already via a really cool song as well, which was by Will. I am, I think did you know?

You've cringed

Sidey: the edge off it now

Reegs: And he's got some backstory about fighting some guy and being flung into the future. So he is trying to get home, that kind of story. So he's interested in this because he knows that the well can grant you one

Dan: wish. Yeah. So, he

goes to like find the, the well, you know, and the guy goes, what makes you think you can do it? You're just one guy. I had millions. He goes, well, I'm Jack.

And as he edges out the forest, the.

the,

arrows start flying

Sidey: Well, they

Dan: And they go between his toes, the

Sidey: they take his clothes. Bit by bit.

Dan: Yeah and he's hidden behind trees and they're going through trees. They're, you know, so even behind the trees, he's not safe and he can feel the sharpness. thinks,

Reegs: But this is all done in a very distinctive kind of style. Unusual camera shots and choices and stuff as well.

Sidey: there'll be spit screen, you know, spit shots on the screen,

Dan: anime style, but still very not like that in, in animation, just in, in delivery and kind of puts it in

Sidey: Yeah, it has a very distinctive style. So he's, he's pinned at one point to a tree by arrows. And yeah, his clothes are just like, it's really horny.

He decides to fight them.

Dan: Has a moment doesn't he where he goes back in in his mind at least it's like he's thinking back to an impossible moment in his training and he realizes after meditating under a waterfall that he's got to go down to his kind of loincloth.

Reegs: This is when he realizes that they're blind. I don't think they knew at that point, because the blindness, by the way, has shown that they don't have pupils. Did you see that? It's pretty weird. But yeah, so this is where he realizes, and that he has to get to the same level as them,

Stripped down,

Dan: Yeah

got to be able to hear when those arrows are coming and avoid them rather than See when they're coming

Reegs: uses a bit of subterfuge, doesn't he? He works it out with the hat. That he drops anyway, so yeah. Anyway, eventually he is gonna get close enough to get right in there.

In his

Dan: well, he, he, he zigzags a run through the snow, and just as the arrows are coming, he's, his ears are alert, and all his senses are one.

Sidey: Yeah, he does get to the top of the tower. Yeah. Stands. This is a little bit like Blind Fury as well.

He stands.

So they circle him and they simultaneously each fire an arrow towards him.

Reegs: he's

Sidey: And

he's able to duck out of the way of those. And then there's a really cool slow mo bit, yeah, that's right, where the three arrows Do they hit

Cris: yeah, they collide with each other,

Sidey: they splinter? Anyway

Cris: No, they, they hit each other and then go back to the original archer and then hit them in the chest or

Sidey: And it, it removes this curse that's been put on them. And they're not, because they're sort of, like,

What animal do they look like?

Reegs: Not a fox.

Sidey: I'd say it's, it's like a kind of Egyptian iconography almost.

Reegs: one of those Egyptian dog things. Yeah. That's what

Sidey: yeah, that's what they look like. But they're not, that's not at all what they are.

They're this kind of just sort of nondescript kind of

Reegs: nondescript creatures. Shlubby

Sidey: yeah and they're all confused like what the fuck's happened there

Dan: little miniature stay puff

men.

Sidey: when They

they explain yeah they say well we came up here um to to get the wish granted and we asked to become the most fearsome warriors and i wish like in all these wish stories the the wish is perverse and it's not as they intended and it sort of manifests itself by

Dan: Well, they

Reegs: It's always the same with wishes, isn't it, be careful what you wish for, all that sort of shit,

Dan: that was it. He he's just about to make a wish and they tell him this

Home.

which is the whole reason he's risked everything but He realizes no i'm there'll be some kind of caveat to that and I won't you know I won't have it my way.

So he wishes it to be destroyed and

Sidey: it stabs the well water.

Yeah. With his sword. Which,

Dan: works because it heads up into the sky circles around and dissipates

Sidey: Yeah.

Well done Jack.

Dan: when he kind of walks off not that happy

Sidey: isn't it? 'cause he, because he hasn't got his wish to go,

Reegs: but he's earned the admiration of the three

schlubby monk guys.

So,

Dan: Yeah, they say something along those

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: I like this.

Yeah. I thought he

I can imagine him going on, you know, lots of different adventures. One day, he will find the way home. And he'll get a chance to kick that guy's ass that sent him there.

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: Or you will get sent

Reegs: sound. The score, the soundtrack was really good. Like really banging.

Dan: Really atmospheric actually. I said at one point, I mean you could put this in a,

Reegs: in a

Dan: in a, in a club.

You know, you could put it in a, in a, it wasn't, you know, just for kids TV. It was

Sidey: well it started off on Cartoon Network and then season five, I think it was, they, they sort of stopped cease production and it was acquired by Adult Swim. And so they were able to make another series and that wasn't at the behest of cartoon Networks.

So they were able to take it to an even more adult friendly

Dan: So I

Sidey: Story. So I would say this merits further investigation.

Reegs: to keep

Dan: Interesting, yeah.

Reegs: story. So

Cris: From what I've seen, yeah, it was good. There's a

Sidey: The guy that did Samurai Jack's voice was Phil Lamar.

Dan: Lamar?

Sidey: Mark's brother.

Reegs: And

Sidey: and there's a character in it called Aku. Yes?

Reegs: Which one was Aku Japanese.

for Oh, the bad

guy!

Sidey: Yes. Aka is Japanese for evil. Yeah. But in Brazil, they had to change the name because in Brazil, it means anus.

Which probably gives a different slant to the,

Reegs: He's called him Sphincter or something.

Dan: it

Sidey: But amusing names aside, it's a strong recommend.

Reegs: definitely for this.

Dan: a strong, Right, we're having a race off, aren't we, to see who gets our nominations over the line first. Will it be Chris with his written down but not brought along and forgotten

Cris: No, I didn't write them down. I just, I thought of something and then I know one of the movies, but it's all, I'll, I'll put something out tonight when I get home, or if not tomorrow. If you are faster, I'm

Sidey: leaving.

That's

Cris: There's not really, there's not really a race.

Reegs: A race. I I, it's officially a race. I've declared

Cris: gonna be the slowest race in history, probably. So

Dan: Yeah. We shall see. Keep, keep everyone to the edge of their seats until next week, I guess.

Sidey: all that remains is to say, Sidey signing out.

Reegs: res is gone.

Cris: Dan's gone.

Dan: Dan's gone.