As previously mentioned on this blog, High and Low is probably my favourite Kurosawa film, in fact one of my favourite ever films, so I come at Spike Lee's interpretation with some biased baggage, I admit.

It's different enough to be interesting in its own right. I liked the set up of King being a record company executive rather than for a shoe company, and I liked the whole cultural shift into the area of US black music. As you might expect, the soundtrack is rather good though it dominates the film, sometimes a little too much. Denzel Washington is great to watch, as he so often is, and his performance marks a lot of the movie's high points.

Some of the story changes didn't work so well for me. Making King and his chauffeur close buddies makes it less of a sacrifice when King finally decides to give up a large part of his fortune to save his friend's mistakenly kidnapped son. I also felt that decision came too easily - at first he's totally against it, which seems out of character for someone who appears to have such strict family values, then he relents and ... that's it, unlike Mifune who seems to carry some agony at the cost throughout much of the rest of the film.

With Kurosawa, the kidnapper's associates are explained and dealt with, but with this modern telling the associates are useful for one scene - the moped chase - and then they disappear for good. Related to this, King's dropping of the bag of money from the train is slightly ridiculous as it's dropped by accident right into the arms of one of the associates - was that the plan? And the police accompanying King on the train are very obvious - maybe they're not even trying to be undercover, but that does tone down the tension somewhat.

As for the kidnapper, Yung Felon, the motivation is interesting and I didn't mind it - in fact it's more specific than the more general hatred of Takeuchi. But that hatred seems more real in the earlier film, more visceral - the kidnapper is tortured by it. I didn't get the feeling of Felon coming from the absolute depths of society as in High and Low - he's in a relationship, he's talented, he has a nice recording studio. He didn't appear to be hiding away much after the successful kidnap.

And then it's an American film so, of course, the hero has to be the one to save the day, as King goes in himself (with his trusty chauffeur sidekick) to confront the kidnapper where, rather ludicrously, they engage in a kind of rap battle. It's true that in the original Ed McBain story, King fights the kidnapper, but he's accompanied by the police and his violence is a result of anger at them trying to steal his fortune.

Most of my criticisms are plot-related and comparing it to Kurosawa. Taken as it's own thing, it's a decent enough film with solid performances, stylistic and entertaining.

I write this as news came yesterday of the death of Tatsuya Nakadai on 8th November, at age 92. He was the Chief Detective in High and Low, but is more famous as the samurai villain in both Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Other major films include Kobayashi's The Human Condition trilogy, Kwaidan, and Harakiri, as well as Kurosawa's Kagemusha and Ran. This is just a tiny part of his film output - a real giant of Japanese cinema.