While I believed that the Samurai creeds interspersed throughout Ghost Dog's life lessons lent interpretive commentary, I muttered under my breath a lot because I had to pause the movie while trying to process the long narratives. I found it unbelievable that a modern ghetto hit man would live by the code of Hagakure.
Ghost Dog follows the life of the Samurai, as laid out in Hagakure. "The Way of the Samurai is the way of death," it states. "Meditation on inevitable death should be performed every day."
Another lesson is that the samurai must devote his body and soul to his master, to the exclusion of all else. Ghost Dog lives by this creed. Because Louie once saved his life, he regards the gangster as his master, so everything he does during the course of the film is designed to protect Louie, not to save his own life.
I enjoyed watching Ghost Dog at peace with his pigeons and felt sad when the majority of his pets were destroyed by the mob. Ghost Dog was the master of the homing pigeons. And they were his little pet Samurai's. I liked the way they showed their loyalty to their master without the need for any narrative. It really touched me when his number one pigeon appeared and brought a smile to Ghost Dog's face as he lay dying in the street.
