This article contains spoilers about Highest 2 Lowest.
Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky let it flow in Highest 2 Lowest, the new crime thriller from Spike Lee.
A reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 feature High and Low, which was adapted from the Evan Hunter novel King’s Ransom, Highest 2 Lowest stars Washington as David King, an influential New York music mogul fighting to keep his storied record company alive when he’s targeted by a ransom plot that puts his morals to the test. He goes toe-to-toe with the ransom mastermind, an aspiring artist who performs under the moniker Yung Felon (played by Grammy nominee A$AP Rocky, real name Rakim Mayers).
It all comes to a head when David unmasks Yung Felon as the culprit, quietly ambushing him in a dilapidated recording studio where the latter is laying down new tracks. The sequence, which leads to an enthralling chase through the mean streets of New York, features a memorable freestyle between David and the young artist who could have been his disciple.
When asked about his approach to the scene and whether A$AP offered any pointers, Washington tells Entertainment Weekly, “I’ve been listening to rap music long before A$AP was born. I’ve been up on the music and culture for 40, 50 years.”
David Lee/A24
Denzel Washington as David King in ‘Highest 2 Lowest’
So, no. No pointers necessary. “We were battling!” the Academy Award winner quips.
That freestyle “lifted the whole film up,” says Lee, who marks his fifth joint with Washington with the crime noir. He didn’t need to offer much direction to his stars during that free-flowing sequence. “Cameras rolling, I’m not gonna stop. They were flowing,” Lee says. “It was a rap battle! That was gold. That was better than anything written.”
It was Washington who first brought the script, penned by Alan Fox, to Lee’s attention. “Spike Lee has proven excellence over the decades, and there was no question in my mind who I wanted to be at the helm of this film,” Washington says. “We’ve had great success together. It is a New York story. That really became the dominant character, New York. There was no one I knew that could tell the story better than Spike.”
Washington adds of the auteur who has become synonymous with the city, “I think he likes New York.”
David Lee/A24
A$AP Rocky as Yung Felon in ‘Highest 2 Lowest’
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Suffice to say, Lee, a known Kurosawa superfan, didn’t need much arm-twisting. The famed Japanese filmmaker had an enormous influence on the Malcolm X director, who first discovered the latter’s works as a grad student at NYU. His feature directorial debut, 1986’s She’s Gotta Have It, was famously inspired by Kurosawa’s landmark 1950 thriller Rashomon, which broke cinematic ground for its narrative structure of multiple perspectives of a singular event.
Lee had the opportunity to meet his filmmaking hero in the late ’80s prior to his death, thanks to an introduction from peers George Lucas and Frances Ford Coppola. (Both helped Kurosawa bring his war epic Kagemusha to international audiences.) “I can’t remember if it was Tokyo or New York. He knew who I was. I was elated,” Lee recalls. “I didn’t think he knew who I was. It was a great moment for me. The conversation was not long. Most importantly, I gave him a big hug. The hug for me was the communication.”
Lee’s most prized possession, he shares, is a signed self-portrait of the filmmaker. “I thought about him while we were doing this film,” he says.
Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, Aubrey Joseph, Ice Spice, and Wendell Pierce also star in the film, in select theaters Aug. 15 before hitting Apple TV+ on Sept. 5. Washington stresses the theatrical experience first and foremost. “Go to the theater in order to really experience the film the way it should be experienced,” the star says. “Please support us in the theater first.”
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