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Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest brings the ransom story associated with Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low into contemporary New York, with Denzel Washington as music mogul David King. It is best approached as a new version of a story with more than one source: Apple describes the film as a reinterpretation of Kurosawa’s crime thriller, while Lee says the project began with Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom.
What is Highest 2 Lowest about?
David King is a music mogul whose family is pulled into a ransom plot. The kidnapping involves King’s son and the son of his friend and driver, played by Jeffrey Wright. The story unfolds on modern New York streets, shifting the crime thriller’s social setting into a city and an era distinct from the 1963 film. A$AP Rocky is also among the cast. Apple’s official film page provides the synopsis and credits, while the Associated Press’s Cannes report describes the central kidnapping plot.
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Is it a remake of High and Low?
The relationship is real, but “remake” is an incomplete description of the film’s lineage. Apple calls Highest 2 Lowest a reinterpretation of Kurosawa’s crime thriller. In a National Board of Review Q&A, Lee explained that the project began with Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom, the source behind Kurosawa’s film. Those descriptions can coexist: Lee’s film revisits the same underlying ransom story through both the novel and the celebrated screen adaptation, rather than being best understood as a simple, scene-for-scene copy.
That distinction matters to how the film should be judged. The useful comparison is not just whether Lee repeats Kurosawa’s plot, but how the story changes when it is carried into present-day New York, with a music mogul at its center. The city, the characters’ positions in it, and Lee’s own cinematic voice give this version room to make a different emphasis.
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How to compare Lee’s film with Kurosawa’s
Viewers familiar with the 1963 film can look for both the shared framework and the choices that distinguish Lee’s interpretation:
- The ransom story: Notice how the central kidnapping and its consequences are organized, and where the newer film reshapes that structure.
- Class and setting: The move to contemporary New York places the story in a different social world. Consider what changes when the central figure is a music mogul and how the city shapes the conflict.
- Thriller momentum: Compare how each film builds and sustains tension across its crime story, rather than assuming that a shared premise produces the same pacing.
- Directorial voice: Attend to the choices that make Lee’s version feel like its own film in setting and emphasis, not merely an update of an older one.
Kurosawa’s High and Low (1963) is available in Criterion Collection’s listed Blu-ray and 4K UHD plus Blu-ray editions, so a direct comparison is possible. Criterion lists a new 4K restoration, commentary by Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince, a making-of documentary, interviews with Toshiro Mifune and Tsutomu Yamazaki, trailers, and essays among the edition’s features.
Where can you watch Highest 2 Lowest?
Availability depends on the market. Apple’s US page lists the film as in theaters and on Apple TV from September 5; its Canada page lists theatrical availability from August 15 and Apple TV+ streaming from September 5. Check Apple’s page for your region for current access and catalog availability, since the listed dates and viewing options are market-specific.
