Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest Reimagines Akira Kurosawa’s Crime Thriller Masterpiece
Spike Lee takes on one of Kurosawa’s masterpieces.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but in filmmaking, that isn’t always true. Perhaps a better term would be reinterpretation, as filmmakers adapt movies but give them their own twist, allowing the story to be refreshed for a new audience and continue to evolve. Luca Guadagnino remade Dario Argento’s Suspiria with a colder and more brutal focus, Robert Eggers gave 1922’s Nosferatu a sensual update, and Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars puts a western spin on Akira Kurosawa’s samurai epic Yojimbo.
Now, High and Low, another movie from Kurosawa’s illustrious filmography, is getting a remake titled Highest 2 Lowest, from one of the most acclaimed directors working today: Spike Lee. From the first teaser, it’s clear that Lee’s trademark style shines through in the film anchored by Denzel Washington. Check out the teaser below:
High and Low followed a powerful businessman as he becomes embroiled in a ransom scenario while risking it all at work, and it seems like Highest 2 Lowest is following the same basic plot, transported to Lee’s always-colorful version of New York.
The entire teaser is narrated by Denzel Washington’s character delivering a monologue. “There's more to life than just making money,” he says. “It's integrity, there's what you stand for. It's what you actually believe in.”
It’s all very in line with the plot of High and Low, but the next few lines reveal how Lee has updated the story for the modern day and age. “So can you handle the mayhem?” he asks. “Can you handle the money? Can you handle the success? Can you handle the failure? Can you handle the lovers? Can you handle the memes? Can you handle everything that there is in between?”
Toshiro Mifune in Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 movie High and Low.
High and Low was a foundational film for the police procedural genre, and its legacy is evident throughout cinema, from the house in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite to the production design of The Batman. It was even at one time set to be remade by Martin Scorsese with a script by playwright David Mamet, but the project fell through. It’s also not even the first time Spike Lee has adapted a non-English thriller: in 2013, he remade Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy.
