Denzel Washington and Spike Lee to Reunite for Akira Kurosawa remake
Actor Denzel Washington and director Spike Lee announced they are joining forces once more, the first time in 18 years, for a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller “High and Low.” The duo have collaborated four times previously, on “Mo’ Better Blues,” “Malcolm X,” “He Got Game,” and, most recently, “Inside Man.”
“High and Low” was originally based on the novel “King’s Ransom” by the prolific American author Ed McBain. McBain was a nom de plume for Evan Hunter, who also wrote “The Blackboard Jungle” (adapted to a popular film with a significant early turn by Sidney Poitier) and was a co-screenwriter of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
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The original “High and Low” starred Toshiro Mifune as an executive who faces a moral crisis during a pivotal moment of his career—just as he had intended to move a vast amount of his personal wealth for business reasons, his son is kidnapped and held for ransom. But wait! It’s actually not his son … the kidnappers got confused and yanked his chauffeur’s kid instead. And the baddies are still demanding money. What’s a guy to do?
The remake will be released by A24 before heading to Apple TV+, with a screenplay by Lee and Alan Fox, a former college basketball player and model turned playwright. Another Fox script, “Queens of the Stoned Age,” about a model/marijuana mogul has been in development with Dakota Johnson for some time.
Washington is a two-time Oscar-winner, for his supporting turn in “Glory” and for the lead role in “Training Day.” He has eight other nominations, including a Best Actor nod for “Malcolm X.” Lee received an Honorary Oscar in 2016 for his decades of groundbreaking work, and shared a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar win for “BlackKklansman.” He has four other Oscar nominations and also won the Student Academy Award for “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads,” which you really ought to watch if you never have.
“High and Low” will not be Lee’s first remake. His 2013 film “Oldboy” was an Americanized version of South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s classic and his microbudget 2014 project “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” was a remake of Bill Gunn’s “Ganga & Hess.”
Recently, Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” was remade as “Living,” which netted a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Bill Nighy and its writer Kazuo Ishiguro. More famously, the classic Western “The Magnificent Seven” is a remake of Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” (as was “Battle Beyond the Stars”) and Sergio Leone’s “A Fistful of Dollars” starring Clint Eastwood shares a lot in common with “Yojimbo.” Also, Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress” has long been cited as an influence on George Lucas and “Star Wars” (the plot involves rescuing a princess, with comic relief characters an awful lot like C-3PO and R2-D2 along for the ride.) Lucas paid the favor back by acting as an executive producer on Kurosawa’s grand 1980 epic “Kagemusha.”
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