Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (2009)

''Every day, without fail, one should consider himself as dead.'' Thus reads a passage in the 18th-century Japanese text that the hulking hitman Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) totes everywhere. While this mantra puts him in synch with previous Jim Jarmusch heroes, it's a pleasure to report that Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai brings the minimalist director who found fame with 1984's ''Stranger Than Paradise'' back to the land of the living.

Acting as a lone warrior for the Jersey hood who once saved his life, Ghost Dog finds himself cutting a bloody Zen swath up the chain of command to the godfather himself. Jarmusch, meanwhile, honors such cinematic forebears as Sergio Leone Westerns and Jean-Pierre Melville's ''Le Samourai'' even as he smears a brooding rap soundtrack (from Wu-Tang Clan's RZA) all over Tony Soprano's turf. The result has the dingy grace of pigeons flying across an urban wasteland.