Highest 2 Lowest (2025) ‘Cannes’ Movie Review: Spike Lee Respectfully Reenvisions a Kurosawa Classic With Strong New York Flavor

Needless to say, remaking one of the greatest films of all time by arguably the greatest filmmaker of all time for an American crowd is a recipe for probable cinematic sacrilege. Add to this the fact that the American doing the remaking happens to be a director who’s already famously desecrated one classic of Asian cinema, and the prospects for Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest” appear rather dim from the outset. Fortunately, while his rehash of “Oldboy” was the work of a man clearly indifferent to his product, his reinterpretation of “High and Low” indicates a man who knew what made the original work, and what else could benefit from a modern update.

In a sense, “Highest 2 Lowest” can very well describe the trajectory of Lee’s entire career—a man who, over the course of his storied history, has made unimpeachable classics in between baffling misfires—but through it all, the charm of an unrestrained visionary pushing his ideas to the limit has remained a defining element of his time as a seminal American artist. In taking on a beloved Japanese thriller given decades of exaltation, Lee has once again found himself with a daunting personal challenge; this time, the stakes are matched by an enthusiasm to meet them head-on and stamp his own Spike-isms all across the screen.

For those unfamiliar with Kurosawa’s second-best film (the best was already remade in 2022 by another director appearing in Cannes in 2025…), “Highest 2 Lowest” borrows the same basic blueprint of a kidnapping that takes a drastic, unexpected shift. This time, the target is a New York music mogul named David King (Denzel Washington, returning for a fifth Lee collaboration), whose life is thrown into disarray as he receives news that his son (Aubrey Joseph) has been taken for ransom by a mysterious and hostile criminal (A$AP Rocky).

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Obviously, there’s no good moment for one’s son to be kidnapped, but this tragedy happens at a particular moment when King is leveraging his entire financial situation in order to buy back his record label. Aside from time with his family, money is the last thing he has to spend, but it turns out that King’s altruism will be tested to limit when it comes to light that the kidnapper has actually taken the son of his assistant and longtime friend Paul (Jeffrey Wright). Now, his loyalty to the man who stood by his side through thick and thin will be questioned when the abductor simply doubles down and demands the ransom all the same.

Washington, as always, is dynamic and magnetic as Lee’s most consistent muse, and “Highest 2 Lowest” benefits greatly from the sense of focus these two artists give one another. So many decisions made in this film could have resulted in a complete nosedive—remaking Kurosawa for one, or casting a rapper with little acting experience as the foil for one of the greatest and most experienced actors of all time for another. However, William Alan Fox’s script remains on-target where it matters, keeping the most important elements of Evan Hunter’s original story while leaving gaps for Lee to inject his own forceful personality; Washington’s chameleonic charisma slips right in for a role that requires just as much fatherly charm as entrepreneurial sleaze.

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In “Highest 2 Lowest,” Lee re-envisions Kurosawa’s Hunter adaptation for the internet age in the Big Apple, where the complications of the plot can become further exacerbated by the spectre of public perception. It’s an angle that, while not solidifying the morality of Washington’s lead, certainly adds a dimension of believable concern that might further aggravate the decisions being made when a proverbial (or literal) trigger has to be pulled.

Matching Washington with Rocky makes for a luminously inspired bit of interplay that gives the film a refreshed sense of Lee’s trademark cultural atmosphere, further enhanced by the film’s banging soundtrack—new A$AP album when, goddammit? The same, however, can’t be said for Howard Drossin’s abysmally saccharine orchestral compositions, which lead directly into Lee’s usual penchant for awkward editing and iffy dialogue; at the end of the day, though, these touches are what make Spike Spike, and if nothing else, give this adaptation an impetus to exist as its own entity.

The longstanding collaboration between Spike Lee and Zel has ranged from important historical recreations to playful genre thrills. Depending on how much reverence you hold for “High and Low” (which should be a lot), “Highest 2 Lowest” can very well be classified as somewhere in the middle, and while unable to even remotely hold a candle to Kurosawa’s chef-d’oeuvre, Lee’s interpretation holds more than enough justification for adding its own distinct flavor to the mix.

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Highest 2 Lowest (2025) Movie Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia, Letterboxd
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) Movie Cast: Denzel Washington, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jeffrey Wright, ASAP Rocky, Ice Spice
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) Movie In Theaters on Fri Aug 22, Genre: Mystery & Thriller/Crime/Drama

Where to watch Highest 2 Lowest