Book versus film: How Akira Kurosawa’s ‘High and Low’ relocates – and reimagines – ‘King’s Ransom’

Spoilers ahead about High and Low and Highest 2 Lowest.

Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic crime drama High and Low is back in conversation, thanks to Highest 2 Lowest, a recent adaptation by Spike Lee. Both movies have the same literary source: Ed McBain’s King’s Ransom.

The title of the 1959 novel is a play on words. King’s Ransom refers to the huge ransom that shoe company executive Douglas King is expected to pay in exchange for a boy’s life as well as the unfairness of the deal. The kidnapped boy isn’t King’s son.

Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest is about music industry mogul David King (Denzel Washington), who lives in a penthouse in New York City with luxurious interiors and staggering views. Far below, struggling rapper Yung Felon (ASAP Rocky) effects a kidnap that rattles King’s cushy existence.

Highest 2 Lowest was recently released on Apple TV+. Alan Fox’s screenplay cherry picks elements from both the McBain novel and Kuroswa’s film.

In the book, Douglas King is in the middle of a hostile takeover of his company when the kidnapping takes place. “My sins are all catching up with me,” King says. “A cruel heartless bastard, that’s me.”

King has contempt for his driver, whose...

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