Spike Lee reteams with Denzel Washington for the fifth time in “Highest 2 Lowest.” The film is a new riff on Kurosawa's “High and Low,” set in modern-day New York around a music mogul's moral dilemma.

From the opening moments of “Highest 2 Lowest,” Spike Lee’s remix-as-remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film “High and Low,” you should know that the filmmaker is here primarily for a