“There’s more to life than just making money. It’s integrity, there’s what you stand for. It’s what you actually believe in.”
In 1963, the legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (who made such films as the 1950 Golden Lion winner “Rashōmon” and 1954’s “Seven Samurai”) decided to film an adaptation of the crime novel “King’s Ransom” from writer Evan Hunter (who also wrote Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film “The Birds.”) The resulting picture was named “High and Low”, and is widely considered by many (including me) to be among the single greatest films of all time. While I have previously sung my praise of this film earlier in 2025, I thought it was important to bring it up again to set the stage for this new adaptation from noted director Spike Lee.
Lee has had some highs and lows in his own career as well, with his critically acclaimed films (which he markets as “joints”) such as 1989’s “Do the Right Thing” and his 1992 masterpiece “Malcolm X,” to the regrettable 2013 remake of Park Chan-wook’s 2003 film “Oldboy.” When this joint was first announced, I was still tentatively excited, especially when I learned that Denzel Washington would be returning for his fifth feature film collaboration with Lee. Luckily, the resulting picture manages not to fall flat on its face and is a lot of fun to watch.
The plot follows a Grammy winning music producer named David King (played by Washington, who won two Academy Awards for his roles in 1989’s “Glory” and 2001’s “Training Day”) who runs the record label Stackin’ Hits Records. He has a successful life and lives in a high rise penthouse overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge with his wife Pam (played by Ilfenesh Hadera, star of Lee’s 2015 joint “Chi-Raq”) and son Trey (played by Aubrey Joseph, star of the 2018-2019 Marvel show “Cloak & Dagger”). In the face of a potential buyout, King makes the decision to wager everything he owns to gain a controlling interest in his own company.
He tells this to his personal chauffeur, Paul Christopher (played by Jeffery Wright, star of the 2023 Best Picture nominee “American Fiction”), and they drop off their kids at basketball practice. King learns that a child has been kidnapped, but due to a wardrobe mix up, the wrong child was taken by the kidnapper (played by rapper A$AP Rocky), and now he has to help save Christopher’s son (played by Elijah Wright). The ransom is more $17 million, and King has to decide to do the right thing or be made out as a heartless monster.
The cinematography was decently well done, but the blocking could have been more engaging, especially when compared to the original. I did notice that Lee’s signature Double Dolly shot was used when the cops were explaining their plan, and that the final confrontation between King and Yung Felon also briefly uses an ultra wide aspect ratio, similar to what the original “High and Low” used throughout its entire runtime. Some scenes were actually shot on film, and the handoff scene in particular looks great. The joke of Felon’s apartment being number A24 was also a cheeky callout to one of the two studios producing the film.
Despite having more screen time in this version of the film, Pam feels like less of a character than in the original. Because the son was aged up to a teenager, it made sense to give him more scenes discussing the morality of the situation with his father, but that comes at the expense of his mother. While they do add more scenes of her, she sadly feels less involved in the plot in this version.
Another difference from the original film is the reduced role of the police in catching the kidnapper. Kurosawa’s version was essentially bifurcated, with the first half being told from Kingo Gondo‘s perspective, and the second half being from the lead investigator’s perspective. Obviously, when you have Denzel Washington starring in your film, you are going to use him in a lot more than just half your joint, but this choice did make the time between the train handoff scene and his meeting the kidnapper for the first time feel extremely rushed.
The score was definitely overused, but there were moments where it shone through, like the train handoff scene, which was rather well done all around and easily the best part of the film. Even on a more granular level, there are many small similarities between the two films that most audiences would overlook.
The brief mention of the Ebony Alert program struck me as interesting, especially because one of the main reasons that Kurosawa made the original film was to point out how Japanese kidnapping penalties contained major loopholes, linking both films in trying to enact a small amount of social change and reform. Kurosawa also famously used screen wipes as transitions between scenes (influencing George Lucas to use them frequently in 1977’s “Star Wars”), and Lee uses this on at least two occasions by having the Stackin’ Hits Records logo act as a wipe, which I thought was a very nice homage.
In the end, Spike Lee’s latest joint pays homage to Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece while remixing it in his own fresh style. My final rating for “Highest 2 Lowest” is a cool 8/10.
