HIGHEST 2 LOWEST vs. HIGH AND LOW

by Glenn Andreiev

Spike Lee exits an airport terminal and an intrusive video journalist from TMZ suddenly takes footage of him. Spike halts, glares at the wannabe paparazzi, and says, “You have a camera? And this is what you're doing with it? Use that camera to make a statement, to create art.” That mindset is working for Spike Lee in HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, his remake of HIGH AND LOW, Akira Kurosawa’s masterful detective/suspense film.

By 1960, there were three top-of-the-line great non-English-speaking film directors: Ingmar Bergman from Sweden, Federico Fellini from Italy, and Kurosawa from Japan. Kurosawa won global fame with such action- and emotion-filled samurai epics as RASHOMON, SEVEN SAMURAI, YOJIMBO, and his adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the visceral THRONE OF BLOOD. As early as the 1950s, Hollywood studios tried to lure Kurosawa to America.

Kurosawa decided to film the American crime story KING’S RANSOM by Evan Hunter, who often worked under the name Ed McBain. Hunter would later write Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS. KING’S RANSOM was part of “87th Precinct,” a series of detective novels by Hunter/McBain. In KING’S RANSOM, Douglas King, a wealthy shoe manufacturer, is liquidating every penny he has to buy out the large shoe company he partially owns. He gets a phone call from a man who says he kidnapped his son and demands King’s entire fortune. The boy turns up unharmed, and it turns out the kidnapper grabbed the boy’s best friend by mistake. That child is the son of King’s chauffeur. The kidnapper still demands the ransom despite the mistake. Mr. King is caught in a moral tangle: should he pay the ransom for another man’s child?

Kurosawa’s adaptation, HIGH AND LOW, set in 1962 Yokohama, is considered one of Kurosawa's best films. The shoe manufacturer is played by Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune, with his usual samurai-like gusto. The detective on the case is played with coolness and calculation by a newcomer at the time, Tatsuya Nakadai. Numerous filmmakers since, including Martin Scorsese, have considered doing a remake of this detective masterwork.

Evan Hunter’s 87th Precinct stories became a TV series around the same time as HIGH AND LOW, with film noir tough guy Charles McGraw as the hard-as-nails Mr. King. Being a quickly made TV episode, it is more set-bound than the versions by Kurosawa and Spike Lee.

Fast forward to 2025 and celebrated filmmaker Spike Lee helms HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, his remake of the Kurosawa film. In HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, Lee cast his frequent collaborator Denzel Washington as Mr. King. Washington's Mr. King is not a shoe manufacturer but an extremely wealthy music producer, world-famous for building the African-American music empire. In the Kurosawa original, people around Mifune warn him that newspapers will vilify him if he lets the kidnapper kill the chauffeur's son. That film is set in a Japan still pulling itself out of World War II, decades before computers and the internet.

Washington’s Mr. King is warned that internet backlash has destroyed many people and will destroy him within the day. In the original, the chauffeur is a meek individual who begs Mifune on his knees and cries for him to pay the ransom. This displays the concrete walls between different classes in Japan at the time. Also, Mifune’s wife is no more than a servant girl, resorting to begging as well. In HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, this chauffeur, played by Jeffrey Wright, has been a longtime friend of Mr. King. They grew up together and regard each other as equals. Mr. King’s wife here is also a high-ranking figure in the music industry.

Also in HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, the New York City detective, played by Frederick Weller, is spot-on for 2025 NYC: abrasive and threatening, ready to petrify the bad guys. Nakadai’s Detective Tokura is always calm and polite. At a Tokyo press conference, he politely asks the reporters not to reveal an update to the story in the same manner one would ask a guest to remove shoes upon entering their house. Kurosawa once said, “Once you become shrill, you lack authority.” Both films have an exciting, plot-turning sequence aboard a fast-moving train. Kurosawa uses the popular Japanese bullet train; Spike Lee uses the subway rattling towards Yankee Stadium.

Another difference is found in the kidnapper himself. Both are angry young men looking to claw their way out of poverty. In HIGH AND LOW, the kidnapper is a hospital intern venomously jealous of Mifune's fortune. This jealousy blinds him to the fact that he could work his way up through the medical field and be as rich as Mifune one day.

Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky, is the kidnapper in HIGHEST 2 LOWEST. His kidnapper is also tormented by poverty and is trying to work his way up in the rap music industry. As Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright track him down, they come up to a door for apartment A-24, the edgy film distribution company releasing Spike Lee's film.

Spike Lee is giving his own take on the original story KING’S RANSOM, and he is not trying to one-up Akira Kurosawa, a filmmaker Lee holds in high reverence. HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, on its own, is a crackling crime thriller. It is also a compelling character study of a man who has reached the top, could not ask for anything more, and then gets fed to the piranha-like fiends of NYC poverty and the cutthroat NYC media business. Denzel Washington, pushing 70, gives his Mr. King the youthful vigor Toshiro Mifune gave in the original. Hampered at times by a need to leave no loose ends in the screenplay, which slows the film occasionally, HIGHEST 2 LOWEST remains exciting. If you enjoyed HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, seek out the Kurosawa original. They complement one another.

CREDITS:

HIGHEST 2 LOWEST

Directed by: Spike Lee

Cinematography: Matthew Libatique

Produced by: Todd Black, Jason Michael Berman

Based on: KING’S RANSOM by Ed McNain (aka Evan Hunter) and the film HIGH AND LOW by Hideo Oguni, Ryuzo Kikushima, Eijiro Hisaita, Akira Kurosawa

Screenplay: Alan Fox

Cast: Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, A$AP Rocky, Ice Spice

2025 · 133 minutes · A24 · Apple Original Films

HIGH AND LOW

Directed by: Akira Kurosawa

Cinematography: Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saito

Produced by: Ryuzo Kikushima, Tomoyuki Tanaka

Based on: KING’S RANSOM by Ed McNain (aka Evan Hunter)

Screenplay: Hideo Oguni, Ryuzo Kikushima, Eijiro Hisaita, Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyoko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi

1963 · 143 minutes · Toho / Criterion