High and Low – 4k Remaster

Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in High and Low, the highly influential domestic drama and police procedural from director Akira Kurosawa.

Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society. High and Low is a tightly directed and tense film noir that takes us deep into the insufferable heat and seedy, heroin-addicted underworld of postwar Tokyo.

Spike Lee’s forthcoming remake sees Oscar winner Denzel Washington stepping into the role originated by Mifune.

"Detail piles upon detail as Kurosawa proves himself far more the painstaking novelist than the author of the original fiction..." Judith Crist

"A sizzling, artistic crackerjack and a model of its genre, pegged on a harassed man's moral decision, laced with firm characterizations and tingling detail and finally attaining an incredibly colorful crescendo of microscopic police sleuthing...." New York Times

"High and Low is a masterful cinematic elevator connecting two warring social perspectives, finding a common ground between them in the pressurized corners of the classic crime drama...." Slant Magazine

"As well as being a skilfully developed thriller and a study in moral dilemma, High and Low is a precise and devastating anatomy of postwar Japanese society...." Observer UK