Highest 2 Lowest (2025)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- When a titan music mogul (Denzel Washington), widely known as having the "best ears in the business", is targeted with a ransom plot, he is jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma. Brothers Denzel Washington and Spike Lee reunite for the 5th in their long working relationship for a reinterpretation of the great filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's crime thriller 'High and Low', now played out on the mean streets of modern day New York City.
- Actors:
- Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, Aubrey Joseph, Elijah Wright, Rick Fox, Rod Strickland, Nuri Hazzard, Jensen McRae, Jade Cayne, Imana Breaux, Andy McQueen, Ice Spice, Sunni Valentine, Frederick Weller, Michael Potts, Samm Davis, Allison Worrell, Dean Winters, LaChanze
- Directors:
- Spike Lee
- Producers:
- Jason Michael Berman, Todd Black
- Writers:
- Evan Hunter, Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Ryûzô Kikushima, Eijirô Hisaita, Alan Fox
- Aka:
- 上流× 下流
- Genres:
- Drama, Thrillers
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Reviews (1) of Highest 2 Lowest
Spike’s Remix - Highest 2 Lowest review by griggs
Not so much a remake as a remix. Spike Lee takes Kurosawa’s High and Low and updates the kit without junking the engine. The bones are the same—a ransom crisis that ricochets from penthouse to pavement—but Highest 2 Lowest swaps cigarette smoke for smartphone glow and gives the material a nervy, modern snap. It’s surprisingly playful too; the film has more bounce than you’d expect from a morality tale.
Denzel Washington is terrific—controlled, prickly, and, when pushed out of his comfort zone, unexpectedly raw. You can feel Lee nudging him toward edges he hasn’t visited in years, and together they make the familiar beats feel newly charged. This isn’t Spike doing Kurosawa; this is Spike being Spike: sharp staging, bold colour, punchy cuts, and a city that feels like a character with a siren for a heartbeat.
It’s not immaculate. The opening hour ambles when it should tighten, but the back half locks in and sings. Lee even opts for a more hopeful curtain than Kurosawa’s cool ambiguity, which will irk purists but suits this version’s pulse. Imperfect, lively, and distinctly his, Highest 2 Lowest honours the original while talking in today’s accent.