Nichols to take on Kurosawa's 'High and Low'

By Sarah Sluis

Mike Nichols, director of classic The Graduate and, most recently, Charlie Wilson's War, has signed on
to direct a remake of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (in Japanese, the double meaning is Heaven and Hell).  Screenwriter David Mamet already wrote the adaptation for Martin Scorsese.  Originally on board to direct, Scorsese will remain on the film as an executive producer.  The premise reminds me of the tough questions asked in the "Would You Rather?" party game/coffee table book, in a good way:  a business executive's son is kidnapped, leading him to divert money from a business endeavor in order to pay the ransom.  Then he finds out the kidnappers took his chauffeur's son, not his own.  As a Kurosawa film--I'm thinking of the many permutations of a crime he explored in Rashomon--I imagine this dilemma is not the central question of the movie but a starting point for additional moral issues to be explored.  In fact, because I cheated and read a synopsis online, I know that the idea of corporate responsibility weighs heavily in the movie (clue to why the film is moving forward now?).  With the country in a recession, I think a film like High and Low, which peripherally explores the business world, drawing unlikely parallels between familial and corporate responsibility, will resonate with audiences.