Park Chan-Wooks “Oldboy” is undoubtedly a masterpiece-and one of the most devastating films ever. For his US version with Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen and Samuel L. Jackson, director Spike Lee did not think much more than defuse the template without adding anything really independent in return. Therefore, there was quite skepticism when the “Do the Right Thing” creator, of all things, announced a remake of Akira Kurosawa's even greater, at least equally devastating masterpiece “between heaven and hell” (“high and low”). But the worries were unfounded. Because in “Highest 2 Lowest“Lee cares much less around the plot or the tone of the template, but brings with it an unmistakable personal handwriting, which – among other things – belongs to a good mood.
In the black and white original from 1963, which in turn is based on the US thriller “King's Ransom” by Ed McBain, the wealthy Kingo Gondô (Toshirô Mifune) is not only in the center of the film, he is also enthroned with his big house on a hill over Yokohama. Here he puts everything on one card to secure the necessary influence through a tricky business deal in order to continue to produce high -quality shoes (while his competitors in his own company would also make do with cheap trash). In the new edition, Denzel Washington now embodies the music producer David King, who tries to buy his own label back in times of AI competition and can see from his penthouse from all over Manhattan.
David King (Denzel Washington) is on the go to deliver the required $ 17.5 million ransom.
What both versions have in common is a central confusion: blackmailers have planned to kidnap David's son Trey (Aubrey Joseph), but because of a confusion they snap Kyle (Elijah Wright), Trey's best friend and son of David's driver Paul (Jeffrey Wright). While the police are still on the spot, the music mogul has to decide whether he is also available for his sponsored son the required $ 17.5 million in Swiss francs. Especially since the sum would ensure that he will definitely lose his label …
Pay or not pay, that is the question here
The (double) moral discussions, whether you should pay the money for another boy or not, take place almost exclusively in a living room in “between heaven and hell”. Despite this chamber game-like appearance, these sequences are not taught by approximately in film schools: Just as Kurosawa orders his characters in the cinemascope images that are superior to tension, is a single master class in terms of direction.
Lee does not even have such high staging requirements. He already makes this clear with the new logo, which with his graffiti look could hardly be away from Kurosawa's rigor and is more reminiscent of a hip-hop comedy from the nineties. Sometimes “Highest 2 Lowest” even borders on a melodramatic soap with its glossy pictures and his piano score. This part is therefore mainly held together by some exciting ideas on how the well -known plot would be different from the existence of social media today, as well as the ultrachamatic performance by Denzel Washington.
Spike Lee celebrates its city
The title of “High and Low” is also very geographically for the fact that the goods actually live above, while the rest of the city in the city literally worshiped in front of themselves. But with this social analysis, Lee simply does not take part in his reinterpretation – and therefore “Highest 2 Lowest” finds itself completely to itself as soon as the ransom payment is due: In the original, it is a literally procedural sequence in which the staging of each individual setting is as cold and precise as the plan of the kidnapper. In the remake in turn, Lee does not seem to be particularly concerned about the thriller aspect of the handover of the money. Instead, the New Yorker uses the subway journey required by the blackmailer to decay a triumphal fireworks for its hometown-as well as their sports teams and communities:
As is well known, Lee has been a glowing fan of the New York Knicks for decades (even at the Cannes press conference on “Highest 2 Lowest” he was wearing a corresponding jersey and cap). So the journey through the city is full of allusions to the home teams and their favorite fan rivalities. He also cuts a street festival for the Puertorican community in the middle, which would only serve to explain to any other director why the police cars do not get ahead. But Lee not only brings the stars Rosie Perez and Anthony Ramos on stage-he also lets the legendary Latin jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri play a whole piece. Lee contrasts the overwhelming disillusion of the original celebration and cheering on.
More Aretha Franklin dare
In the original, one believes for a long time that behind the kidnapper a kind of Robin-Hood figure is definitely hidden from the rich out of poverty. But breast cake-Kurosawa undermines this audience expectation in a way that it is literally pulling the ground away from under your feet (especially in a scene in a drug cave in which the perpetrator “tests” his overdose mixture on a completely finished prostitute). Lee is far from going down into the human abysses in “Highest 2 Lowest” – and yet he has found an excellently functioning path to discuss them in a modern way.
We do not want to reveal how exactly this works, but it definitely leads to Lees more personal, perhaps even perhaps perhaps perhaps something naive-kitschy, but after the film absolutely deserved morale of history: less gangsta rap and more aretha Franklin …
Conclusion: Spike Lee turns a merciless downer a cheerful upper! But not because a positive message in the USA is simply selling better. Instead, Lee, unlike his more poorly chipped “Oldboy” remake, simply pulls his very own thing from start to finish. A real “Spike Lee Joint”-including a performance of his “Malcolm X” stars Denzel Washington, which actually sits about everything about his role name David King!
We saw “Highest 2 Lowest” at the Cannes Film Festival 2025, where he celebrated his world premiere out of competition.