# High and Low (1963 film)

High and Low (Japanese: 天国と地獄, Hepburn: Tengoku to Jigoku, lit. 'Heaven and Hell') is a 1963 Japanese police procedural crime film directed and edited by Akira Kurosawa. It was written by Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijiro Hisaita, and Ryūzō Kikushima as a loose adaptation of the 1959 novel King's Ransom by Evan Hunter. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyōko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Yutaka Sada, and Tsutomu Yamazaki, it tells the story of Japanese businessman Kingo Gondo (Mifune) struggling for control of the major shoe company at which he is a board member. He plans a leveraged buyout of the company with his life savings, when kidnappers led by Ginjirо̄ Takeuchi (Yamazaki) mistakenly kidnap his chauffeur's son to ransom him for 30 million yen.
Production began in 1962 at Toho Studios. Shot mostly on location at Yokohama, and on set at Toho, filming lasted from 2 September to 30 January 1963. The film has been regarded as embodying the post-World War II Japanese economic miracle prior to the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, particularly in its highlighted use of the Kodama express train. The film's complex approach to issues of social class and narrative structure have been critically analysed as substantial adaptational accomplishments. Post-production took just under a month, and after positive test-screenings in mid-February 1963, it received a wide distribution.
Released in Japan on 1 March 1963, High and Low received generally positive reviews domestically and abroad. With a budget of ¥230 million, it was the largest budget Kurosawa had worked with at the time, and became the highest-grossing film at the Japanese domestic box office that year. It was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globe Awards for 1964. The film has since received greater acclaim, and is considered by some to be equal to Kurosawa's films Rashomon (1950) and Seven Samurai (1954). It is viewed as influential on police procedurals, and has been remade multiple times internationally.

## Plot

A wealthy executive named Kingo Gondo is in a struggle to gain control of a company called National Shoes. One faction wants the company to make cheap, low-quality shoes for the impulse market as opposed to the sturdy and high-quality shoes the company is currently known for. Gondo believes that the long-term future of the company will be best served by well-made shoes with modern styling, though this plan is unpopular because it means lower profits in the short term. He has secretly set up a leveraged buyout to gain control of the company, mortgaging all he has. Just as he is about to put his plan into action, Gondo receives a phone call from someone claiming to have kidnapped his son, Jun. He is prepared to pay the ransom, but the call is dismissed as a prank when Jun comes in from playing outside. However, Jun's playmate, Shinichi, the child of Gondo's chauffeur, is missing. The kidnappers had mistakenly abducted him instead.
In another phone call, the kidnapper reveals that he has discovered his mistake but still demands the same ransom. Gondo is now forced to make a decision about whether to pay the ransom to save the child or complete the buyout. After a long night of contemplation Gondo announces that he will not pay the ransom, explaining that doing so would not only mean the loss of his position in the company, but cause him to go into debt and throw the futures of his wife and son into jeopardy. His plans are weakened when his top aide lets the "cheap shoes" faction know about the kidnapping in return for a promotion should they take over. Finally, after continuous pleading from the chauffeur and under pressure from his wife, Gondo decides to pay the ransom. Following the kidnapper's instructions, the money is put into two small briefcases and thrown out from a moving train; Shinichi is found unharmed.
Gondo is forced out of the company and his creditors demand the collateral in lieu of the debt. The story is widely reported however, making Gondo a hero, while the National Shoes Company is vilified and boycotted. Meanwhile, the police eventually find the hideout where Shinichi was kept prisoner. The bodies of the kidnapper's two accomplices are found there, killed by an overdose of heroin. The police surmise that the kidnapper engineered their deaths by supplying them with uncut drugs. Further clues lead to the identity of the kidnapper, a medical intern at a nearby hospital, but there is no hard evidence linking him to the accomplices' murders.
The police lay a trap by first planting a false story in the newspapers implying that the accomplices are still alive, and then forging a note from them demanding more drugs. The kidnapper is then apprehended in the act of trying to supply another lethal dose of uncut heroin to his accomplices, after testing the strength on a drug addict who overdoses and dies. Most of the ransom money is recovered, but too late to save Gondo's property from auction. With the kidnapper facing a death sentence, he requests to see Gondo while in prison and Gondo finally meets him face to face. Gondo is now working for a rival shoe company, earning less money but enjoying a free hand in running it. The kidnapper at first feigns no regrets for his actions. As he reveals that envy from seeing Gondo's house on the hill every day led him to conceive of the crime, his emotions gradually gain control over him and he ends up breaking down emotionally before Gondo after finally facing his failure.

## Cast
### Main cast

* Toshiro Mifune as Kingo Gondo (権藤 金吾, Gondo Kingo)
* Tatsuya Nakadai as Inspector Tokura (戸倉警部), the chief investigator in the kidnapping case.
* Kyōko Kagawa as Reiko Gondo (権藤伶子, Gondo Reiko)
* Tatsuya Mihashi as Kawanishi (河西), Gondo's secretary.
* Kenjiro Ishiyama as Chief Detective 'Bos'n' Taguchi (田口), Tokura's partner.
* Isao Kimura as Detective Arai (荒井)
* Takeshi Katō as Detective Nakao (中尾)
* Yutaka Sada as Aoki (青木), Gondo's chauffeur.
* Tsutomu Yamazaki as Ginjirô Takeuchi (竹内 銀次郎, Takeuchi Ginjiro), the mastermind and chief instigator of the kidnapping plot.
* Takashi Shimura as the Chief of the Investigation Section
* Susumu Fujita as Manager of Investigations
* Yoshio Tsuchiya as Detective Murata (村田)
* Jun Tazaki as Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director (神谷)
* Nobuo Nakamura as Ishimaru, National Shoes Design Department Director (石丸)
* Yunosuke Ito as Baba, National Shoes Executive (馬場)
* Masahiko Shimizu as Shinichi Aoki (青木 進一, Aoki Shinichi), the chauffeur's son who is kidnapped at the beginning of the film.

### Other characters

* Kōji Mitsui as reporter
* Minoru Chiaki as reporter
* Eijirō Tōno as factory worker
* Kamatari Fujiwara as incineration worker
* Masao Shimizu as prison director
* Kyū Sazanka as creditor
* Akira Nagoya as Yamamoto
* Kō Nishimura as creditor
* Jun Hamamura as creditor
* Ikio Sawamura as trolley man
* Kin Sugai as addict
* Masao Oda as executor
* Gen Shimizu as chief physician

## Production

High and Low was filmed at Toho Studios and on location in Yokohama. The film foregrounds the modern infrastructure of the economic miracle years and the run-up to the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, including rapid rail lines and the proliferation of personal automobiles. Based on Evan Hunter's novel King's Ransom (1959), Toho Studios purchased the rights to produce the film version of the book in the summer of 1961 for $5,000 ($52,611 in 2024).
Preproduction began on 20 July 1962, when Kurosawa began casting roles that had not been filled yet. Having appeared in the 1962 film My Daughter and I, directed by Kurosawa's former assistant Hiromichi Horikawa, the decision to cast Tsutomu Yamazaki as the kidnapper may have been at Horikawa's suggestion. During the audition Yamazaki recalled feeling anxious and nauseous, calming down only after he began exchanging lines with Kurosawa. The role launched him to acting success, appearing in two more of Kurosawa's films—Red Beard (1965) and Kagemusha (1980)—and starring in the popular 1970s TV series Hissatsu Shiokinin. Kurosawa also included cameos of his previous collaborators.

### Writing

Kurosawa co-wrote the screenplay with Hideo Oguni, Eijiro Hisaita, and Ryūzō Kikushima. The story was written faithfully to Evan Hunter's novel, but contains significant differences, especially in the ending wherein Kurosawa's ambivalent note contrasts Hunter's optimistic embrace of his main character and his wealth. Unlike the novel too, Gondo does not catch the kidnapper himself. The script originally ended with Inspector Tokura and Gondo having a conversation before Kurosawa changed his opinion in the edit.
Similarly to Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962) before, the script was written straight-to-final draft. Around this time, during the creation of High and Low, co-writer and producer Ryūzō Kikushima took a seat on the board of Kurosawa Productions. Kurosawa said after the release of Red Beard that he wrote High and Low because a friend of his had their son kidnapped. Despite not being particularly impressed with the writing of Hunter's novel, he was apparently struck by the concept of such a kidnapping. Even though he was shocked at the brazenness and cruelty of the crime, Kurosawa felt that his criminal deserved a sympathy in tandem with the sadistic impulses he was subjected to.

### Set design

Gondo's home overlooking Yokohama is in fact two different sets. One is filmed on location, overlooking the city. The night scenes showing the same location and view were filmed with a miniature display outside the window as the location set did not photograph the outside well enough at night. The scenes with the curtains drawn were filmed at Toho Studios. The set itself was a room with an open wall, with the camera rarely entering.
An additional, large, set was made for the original final scene.

### Filming

Filming began on 2 September 1962 and began with the film's first act. Many of the takes shot for the film's first half were ten minutes long, and might have been longer if the capacity of the cameras' magazines were larger. The film is shot using CinemaScope, a widescreen filming system. Long-distance lenses were used, particularly during the first half of the film. The main body of the first half was filmed at Toho Studios. During production of his films Kurosawa would take his frustrations out on the cast and crew, but it became worse during High and Low's creation—it was here that his reputation of making difficulties for the studio and those working on the film began to precede him.
The kidnapping exchange scene wherein money is dropped through the open window of a Kodama express train required nine cameras to be used in the shoot. Due to budgetary restrictions on the reservation of the express train, the scene could only be done in one take. The scene is shot almost entirely with hand-held cameras. All the cameramen at Toho were required to shoot the film simultaneously, which led to all other film productions being shut down for a day. A camera was positioned under the bridge where the money drop took place, during the sequence a camera following one of the detectives on the train didn't work.
While preparing for the train scene, the crew made numerous enquiries to Japanese National Railways; unaware of the reason for their questions one official eventually got suspicious and questioned their intentions. The train was hired and the scene was shot while the train was running along the Tōkaidō Line. Reportedly the actors rehearsed the scene on-set for a week before the one take. According to Teruyo Nogami, script supervisor on many of Kurosawa's films, claims that Kurosawa ordered the destruction of a private home because it was blocking the kidnapper actor's face are exaggerated. Instead a blue sheet was used to disguise alterations made to the second floor of a nearby building, a job conceived and executed just a day before filming took place.
In early 1963, the Yokohama exteriors were filmed, but the cold January weather made it difficult to act convincingly as though it were summer. During a conversation scene between actors Isao Kimura and Takeshi Kato, Kurosawa dyed the nearby river with black paint and poured dirt into it to make the environment filthier. While filming the final scene, Yamazaki burnt his hands on the wire mesh from the heat of the lighting. Filming ended on 30 January 1963.

### Editing

In the editing of High and Low, Kurosawa presents past and present together at the same in the continuity of his narrative. The use of multiple cameras simultaneously during the film's first half meant that a ten-minute scene would have a corresponding hour of footage to cut between. Mid-way through the film, Kurosawa employs colour for the first time in any of his films. Using a trail of pink smoke in a pair of shots that propel the investigation, the moment acts as a singularising pivot around which the investigation is pursued. At this point in his career, Kurosawa felt that he and his crew were still too unfamiliar with the use of colour in film, and so decided to continue shooting films in black and white.
The original script ending was changed when Kurosawa noted the performance of Yamazaki as being especially powerful, the original final scene contained a reflective conversation between Mifune and Nakadai. Although the crew spent two weeks filming the scene, Kurosawa ultimately cut it. The film was test-screened in mid-February. The final cut is 3,924 metres of film in length.

### Music

Scored by Masaru Sato, this was the eighth film he worked on with Akira Kurosawa. The film includes stock music from The H-Man, the music of which was also produced by Sato. To Kurosawa, music in films was supposed to reflect the mood of the scene, with its context and volume under tight control, the opening titles feature a slow mambo, which is used as a tone-setter and thereafter used sparingly throughout the rest of the film. This contextual focus on the use of music extended to either supporting or combatting the image with aural cues, as he did with the use of trumpets with the discovery of clues in the film. During the scene where the kidnapper is first seen by the audience, Franz Schubert's Trout Quintet can be heard on the radio. When the police are in pursuit of the kidnapper, the Neapolitan song 'O sole mio is played, but the relative lack of music was intentional during the climactic scenes of his films so as not to disrupt their meaningful moments.

## Themes

In his analysis of intertextuality, scholar and acquaintance of Kurosawa Donald Richie notes the oppositional extremity of High and Low's Japanese title, Tengoku to Jigoku—which translates to Heaven and Hell—and underlines that by comparing Yokohama to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. In this comparison, Mifune's Gondo takes on the role of Dante himself, with the head detectives fulfilling the role of the angels, demigods, and Virgil. Richie writes that it is "the most black and white of all of Kurosawa's films because its eventual ambiguity is not one of character." He concludes in his moral analysis of the film that good and evil are made to coincide and made equal in their shared identity, that in realising themselves both Gondo and Takeuchi are offending the other. Stuart Galbraith IV also compares High and Low to the Divine Comedy, noting also that while Gondo's house looks down on the people below, Kurosawa conducts a 'hell' in Yokohama "that is, in part at least, seductive." He proposes that Gondo's nouveau riche background and moral compass match Kurosawa and Mifune's own personalities.
When asked in 1975 whether it was correct to view the film as being anti-capitalist, Kurosawa responded:
   "Well, I did not want to say so formally. I always have many issues about which I am angry, including capitalism. Although I don't intend explicitly to put my feelings and principles into films, these angers slowly seep through. They naturally penetrate my filmmaking."
Stephen Prince notes, in his study of Kurosawa's filmography, a dialectical enquiry of perspective running through the film. He underscores this by focusing on the blocking of Kurosawa's characters and the use of modern technology that works to conceal identity. The narrative bifurcation that occurs between the wealthy Gondo's home and the geographical shift down the hill into the shanty town below it during the second half structures Kurosawa's framing of characters' decisions and moral perspectives. When Gondo and the kidnapper meet in the film's final scene, "the existence and structure of class relations, is veiled, mystified to the sight of both an executive living at the heights of the society and a criminal who is aware of profoundly unequal standards of living ... It is the image of Gondo's house, not who he is personally, that triggers the crime".
To historian and film scholar David Conrad, the film's foregrounding of Japan's economic growth (such as the proliferation of personal luxuries, cars, air conditioning) reflects its growing internationalism. This is observed through elements such as the Old West cowboy outfits Jun and Shinichi are seen playing in, and the nightclub seen towards the end of the film. In particular, Conrad draws attention to the narrative's drug-related criminal theme and waste management as aspects that receive attention during the police investigation as indicative of the concerns of contemporary society. He comments that despite the usual association of Kurosawa's films with a humanistic sentiment, High and Low does not "question the desirability of the death penalty as punishment." In addition he describes "the specter of miscegenation" that is evoked in the nightclub scene, broaching a "taboo topic in 1960s Japan" while subtly placing foreign influence under suspicion by linking it to criminality.
Film scholar James Goodwin views the narrative's investigative structure to be an interrogation of social divisions and the nature of power on the human spirit. He compares the third act's showdown in the unrecovered slum with the sump in Drunken Angel (1948) and the bombed out factories in The Bad Sleep Well (1960) as functional representations in the environment of the social harm of executive power. Gondo's heroic actions as the protagonist are questioned by his similarity to the kidnapper. Similarly, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto views this sense of bifurcated identity to present the film as an embodiment of urban anxiety during Japan's post-World War II recovery. New train lines were being built, the urban poor were being expelled from the cities, and the "emergence of a new urban topography meant that the old map of Tokyo was no longer useful." The spatial reorganisation occurring in Yokohama is thus an interpretative act in the investigation which forms part of the characters' subjectivity. He concludes that it does not fully reflect a renewed sense of nationhood, however, and considers its class commentary "reactionary".
Philosopher Gilles Deleuze writes in his book Cinema 1: The Movement Image, that High and Low demonstrates the situation-action paradigm in its structure; that is, the second half is a "senseless, brutal action" after the confined and theatrical space of its situational first half. To Deleuze, this transition from situation to action represents an expansion of space which sees the exploration and exposition of 'heaven and hell'; at the same time, the Kurosawan hero crosses through that space laterally. The process of the situation-action paradigm in the film represents a mutual agreement across the class divide.

## Release
### Theatrical

High and Low was released in Japan on 1 March 1963. Upon High and Low's release in Japan, people called the Kurosawa household and threatened to kidnap his daughter. As a precaution, she was driven to and from school everyday, and grounded in order to prevent a potential kidnapping. During the production of The Bad Sleep Well, Kurosawa had been approached to direct a documentary of the 1964 Summer Olympics after High and Low finished production. While he was initially interested, by the release of High and Low, the Olympics were just a year and a half away, and the budget his staff submitted to the Organising Committee and Toho was considered excessive. His interest waned, and he officially backed out three weeks after the wide release of High and Low on 21 March. The documentary, Tokyo Olympiad, was eventually directed by Kon Ichikawa, and had a similar budget and crew to what Kurosawa had asked for.
In August 1963, the film was entered into the Venice Film Festival, being nominated for the Golden Lion even though it would not see a general release in Italy for a few years afterwards. The film was released by Toho International with English subtitles in the United States on 26 November 1963. Debuting in Toho Cinema, New York, the film acquired a wider, though modest, distribution through Walter Reade–Sterling. It received a wider release in Europe from 1967 onwards, premiering in the United Kingdom in April and Spain in July; but not in France until 1976. The film was re-released in the United States, on new 35mm prints in 1986, and again in 2002. In January and February 2023 the BFI ran a Kurosawa Season hosted by Asif Kapadia, Sonali Joshi, and Ian Haydn Smith.

### Home media

A VHS version of the film was released in 1988 by Pacific Arts Video. Another VHS was released by Home Vision Cinema on 6 June 2000. The Criterion Collection released the film on DVD on 14 October 1998, and again with updated picture and sound quality on 22 July 2008. A Blu-ray version was released on 26 July 2011; included are interviews with Tsutomu Yamazaki and Toshiro Mifune, an audio commentary by Stephen Prince, and a 37-minute documentary detailing the film's production. The British Film Institute released a DVD of the film on 28 March 2005, with a Blu-ray version released on 27 January 2025. The BFI and Criterion have also released High and Low alongside other Kurosawa films in box sets.

## Reception
### Box office

The film was a box office success in Japan, garnering ¥460.2 million in ticket sales and becoming the highest grossing domestic film that year. The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, during the film's opening week at the Toho Cinema in New York, dampened ticket sales. By the end of its eight-week run in that cinema alone, the film generated more than $46,800 total in box office returns. Beginning in its fifth week, the penultimate week of December in 1963, it started to play in different cinemas across New York. The critical and commercial success of Kurosawa's films during the 1960s prompted 20th Century Fox to approach him with an offer to direct the Japanese half of Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), a film about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Kurosawa initially accepted the job, but was fired during filming and replaced as the director. High and Low was re-released in the United States in 2002 as part of the "Kurosawa & Mifune" film festival; a multi-title release that in total accrued $561,692.

### Critical response
#### Contemporary opinion

Contemporary reviews of High and Low were generally positive, but somewhat mixed. Critic Masahiro Ogi praised Kurosawa's eye for detail, contrasting High and Low's details to the way many contemporary Japanese films used them superfluously. However, Tadao Sato believed it, along with other works of Kurosawa's made after I Live in Fear (1955), to be drained of thematic and sentimental meaning. He accused the characters of acting irrationally, particularly concerning the motivation of Yamazaki's kidnapper.
Most American reviewers found its formal style captivating, but did not think the source content was worthy of the art. Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic questioned why Kurosawa made the film, but said he did not want to discourage people from seeing it, as "two hours and twenty three minutes of fine entertainment are not a commonplace achievement." He commended Kurosawa and every person who worked on the film for executing an excellent detective thriller. In Time magazine's review, Kurosawa's scene composition was praised, as was his ability to build suspense, declaring High and Low to be a "triumph of man over matter"; yet the review criticised its pacing after the kidnapper's identity is discovered, further referring to the film as "hackneyed, and at times impausible [sic]". Upon release in the United States, some critics questioned whether investigative techniques such as handwriting profiling and voiceprint analysis were possible in Japan at the time.
Judith Crist of the New York Herald Tribune referred to the film as "detecting without glamour, suspense created by reality", praising the expansion of the novel's moral conflict; but she did not consider it one of the ten best films of the year. The New York Times declared the film to be "one of the best detecting thrillers ever filmed," going on to commend the performances of Mifune and Nakadai and finally commenting on Kurosawa's "remarkable movie mosaic, both spine-tingling and compassionate". The Los Angeles Times considered it a structural departure from Kurosawa's earlier films, celebrating High and Low's camera work and social perspective.
Sight and Sound, viewing the film at the Venice Film Festival, dismissed it as "turgid and disappointing". Upon release in the UK in 1967, a review in the magazine by Robert Vas referred to High and Low's structure as "definitive and divergent at the same time." Vas praised the film's technical elements, such as the lighting and blocking, however, he criticised the film's ending, negatively comparing it to Kurosawa's 1952 film Ikiru and referred to the final meeting as a "simple, meagre point" between obvious metaphors. A negative review in Cahiers du Cinéma dismissed the film's modern context and its "metaphysics and morality [...] taking precedence over suspense", despite praising the train scene as "beautiful", it further critcised the film for police apologia and having sympathy for its rich protagonist.

#### Retrospective opinion

Retrospective reviews of High and Low have been almost universally positive, with the film being referenced by reviewers and filmmakers as an important work in Kurosawa's filmography. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, High and Low has an approval rating of 96% based on 24 critic reviews, with an average score of 8/10. As of 2024, it was the 6th highest-rated feature film on the social film cataloguing site Letterboxd, as an average of the site's user ratings; it is the second-highest rated Kurosawa film on the site, after Seven Samurai. On the media database IMDb, the film is the 84th highest-rated film as an average of user reviews.
Prior to the 1986 American re-release of High and Low, Paul Attanasio, writing in The Washington Post, favourably compared the film's plot and symbolism with William Shakespeare's plays. He wrote that it did not count among Kurosawa's masterpieces, but that it is "in a way, the companion piece" to Throne of Blood (1957), Kurosawa's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth: "[High and Low is] Macbeth, if Macbeth had married better." Tsutomu Yamazaki, viewing the film nearly 30 years after its release at the Sydney Film Festival, still considered the film "fresh and interesting", but cringed upon seeing his own acting. Meanwhile, Yutaka Sada considered it his best performance in all of Kurosawa's films. David Parkinson, writing for Empire in 2006, gave it four out of five stars, commenting on the film's use of "deceptive appearance" to illustrate that "all men are essentially equal and the only thing that really separates them are the choices they make in the depths of a crisis." Scott Tobias wrote for The A.V. Club in 2008 that the film's split nature turned a "mundane follow-through of police work into the stuff of white-knuckle suspense."
In a 1988 special edition of Kinema Junpo magazine, a poll of readers and 39 critics ranked the film the second best film of 1963, behind only The Insect Woman. In 2009, High and Low came 13th on the list of "The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time" by Kinema Junpo. Film director Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker" in 2014, and on the list of his 84 favorite films in 2024. In 2024, Slant Magazine named the film the 42nd best film noir, saying it "stretches what initially seems like a straightforward procedural to the level of Shakespearean tragedy". That same year, Paste magazine said it was Kurosawa's 5th best film, and that its first half is "most tension-filled ransom exchange sequence ever filmed".

### Awards and accolades

| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
| Mainichi Film Awards | 1963 | Best Film | High and Low | Won |
| Mainichi Film Awards | 1963 | Best Screenplay | Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijirо̄ Hisaita, Ryūzо̄ Kikushima | Won |
| Venice International Film Festival | 7 September 1963 | Golden Lion | High and Low | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Awards | 11 March 1964 | Foreign Film - Foreign Language | High and Low | Nominated |

## Legacy

Reportedly after the film's release, the number of kidnappings in Japan increased slightly. Kurosawa, in emphasizing the lenient sentencing of Japanese kidnapping laws, had intended to inspire tougher sentences; but was instead blamed for their increase. High and Low is said to have been partially responsible for reforming the Penal Code of Japan in 1964.
The film is often considered among Kurosawa's greatest works, despite failing to achieve the same level of notoriety as Rashomon or Seven Samurai. Film scholar Audie Bock appraised the film as the last of Kurosawa's great humanistic dramas, believing his subsequent films to lack its moral sense. It has been compared to Kurosawa's earlier police procedural Stray Dog (1949), with their moral themes and depiction of contemporary Japan—during midsummer, in the investigation of a crime.
High and Low has been viewed as influential on the genre of police procedurals, including Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder (2003) and David Fincher's Zodiac (2007). The 2019 Korean film Parasite, directed and co-written by Bong Joon-ho, has a similar premise as High and Low: a family living in an expensive house on a hill are unknowingly shadowed by criminals living in the poorer, lower part of the city. Bong confirmed that Parasite's themes of class disparity, as well as the design of the wealthy family's house, were directly inspired by Kurosawa's film. The design of a set in The Batman (2022), and the premise of a deleted scene for the film, were revealed by its production designer to have taken inspiration from High and Low. The Batman's director, Matt Reeves, had previously cited Kurosawa as one of his filmmaking heroes. American director and actor Chris Weitz named High and Low his favourite Kurosawa film, stating that he's "drawn a lot from [it]".
The Indian film Inkaar (1977) has been described as a Bollywood reproduction of High and Low. The rights to remake the film were acquired by Universal in 1993, Martin Scorsese was set to direct a script written by David Mamet, but the project lingered in development purgatory; an attempt to revive it with Scorsese as co-producer in 2001 also failed to materialise. In 2007 the film was adapted into a J-drama by Yasuo Tsuruhashi for TV Asahi. The plot of the 2023 miniseries Full Circle was inspired by High and Low. Apple Original Films announced in 2024 that Spike Lee will be directing a reinterpretation of the film titled Highest 2 Lowest, starring Denzel Washington, Ice Spice, ASAP Rocky, and Jeffrey Wright. In collaboration with A24, filming started in March and wrapped in June, set to be released in the spring of 2025.