Country: USA, Japan
Year: 2025
Duration: 133'
David King is a powerful music producer in New York. Determined to buy back the majority of shares in his label to regain control, he receives an anonymous phone call on the day the deal is set to close: his son Trey has been kidnapped, and the ransom demand is enormous. However, it’s soon revealed that the kidnapper made a mistake — instead of Trey, he abducted Trey’s friend Kyle, the son of Paul, the family’s driver. At first, King is reluctant to get involved for the boy’s sake, but mounting pressure, growing affection for the real victim, and the potential impact on his reputation push him to find a solution. A remake of Kurosawa’s High and Low, this marks the fifth collaboration between Denzel Washington and Spike Lee.
Biography
film director
Spike Lee
(USA), born in Atlanta and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Spike Lee is one of the most influential American filmmakers of recent decades, known for his powerful exploration of Black identity and culture. His acclaimed works include Do the Right Thing (1989), Malcolm X (1992), 25th Hour (2003), Inside Man (2005), and BlacKkKlansman (2018), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He has frequently collaborated with Denzel Washington, directing him in five films, including the forthcoming Highest to Lowest (2025). Lee has also directed documentaries for HBO and ESPN, such as When the Levees Broke (2006), as well as commercials for Nike. He currently serves as a professor at New York University.
FILMOGRAFIA
Horn of Plenty: Saturday Night Live (cm, tv, 1986), She's Gotta Have It (Lola Darling, 1986), School Daze (Aule turbolente, 1988), Do the Right Thing (Fa' la cosa giusta, 1989), Five One-Minute Spots (cm, tv, 1989), Mo' Better Blues (id., 1990), Jungle Fever (id., 1991), Iron Mike Tyson (cm, tv, 1991), Malcom X (id., 1992), Crooklyn (id., 1994), Clockers (id., 1995), Real Sports "John Thompson" Coach (cm, tv, 1995), Girl 6 (Girl 6 - Sesso in linea, 1996), Portrait of Tommy Hilfiger (cm, 1996), Get on the Bus (Bus (In viaggio) , 1997), Dance (cm, tv, 1997), Computer Wiz (cm, tv, 1997), The Craft of Acting (cm, tv, 1997), 4 Little Girls (doc., tv, 1997), He Got Game (1998), John Leguizamo's Freak (tv, 1998), Summer of Sam (S.O.S. Summer of Sam - Panico a New York, 1999), Bamboozled (Bamboozled, 2000), 25th Hour (La 25ª ora, 2002), She Hate Me (Lei mi odia, 2004), Inside Man (Inside Man, 2006), Miracle at St. Anna (Miracolo a Sant'Anna, 2008), Red Hook Summer (Red Hook Summer, 2012), Oldboy (Oldboy, 2013), Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (Il sangue di Cristo, 2014), Chi-Raq (Chi-Raq, 2015), BlacKkKlansman (BlacKkKlansman, 2018), Da 5 Bloods (Da 5 Bloods - Come fratelli, 2020), Highest 2 Lowest (Highest 2 Lowest, 2025).
Declaration
film director
“The film poses a moral dilemma. It makes the audience think about what they would do if they were in that situation. People are going to react differently.”
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR: Spike Lee. SOGGETTO: from the film High and Low by Akira Kurosawa (1963), inspired to the novel King’s Ransom by Ed McBain. SCREENPLAY: Alan Fox. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Matthew Libatique. EDITING: Barry Alexander Brown, Allyson C. Johnson. MUSIC: Howard Drossin. SET DESIGN: Lisa Scoppa. COSTUME DESIGN: Francine Jamison‑Tanchuck. CAST: Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, A$AP Rocky, John Douglas Thompson, Dean Winters, LaChanze, Princess Nokia, Ice Spice. PRODUCTION: Todd Black, Jason Michael Berman for A24, Kurosawa Production, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Escape Artists, Mandalay Pictures. CONTACT: A24 https://a24films.com
