The August Classics - High and Low (1963)

At John’s excellent suggestion, this month’s Classic is the 1963 version of Spike Lee’s current reboot—a great choice for discussion regardless of the order in which you watch the two films.

Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, adapted from Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom, stars the always-brilliant Toshiro Mifune as an affluent industrialist caught up in underworld shenanigans when a kidnapper targets his family. Per criterion.com, the film “…moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on class and contemporary Japanese society.”

Sounds good to me—and guess what? I’ve never seen this one, so I’ll be among the virgins this time around (insert cringe jokes here)!

For discussion-only participants, the movie is available to stream (for a fee) on many platforms, including Prime, HBOMax, Hulu, Apple+, and YouTube.

HOW TO WATCH

(1) For this watch party we will be using Watch2Gether.
Instructions for attendees is available at the following Google Drive URL:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t1qvgOzBh239qAvG9l1oIaWiRj7UhU84/view?usp=sharing
It does require a browser extension, so please install the extension ASAP.