High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku) Sunday, August 24, 2025 5 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
Toshiro Mifune is a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Kurosawa’s highly influential domestic drama and police procedural. Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, the film moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society. Spike Lee’s upcoming film Highest 2 Lowest is a reinterpretation of High and Low, set in the music industry and starring Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky.
Tickets Available Soon
- $9 general admission; $7 MFAH members, students with ID, seniors (65+)
Plan Your Visit
- This screening takes place in Brown Auditorium Theater in the Law Building.
- Parking Information | Museum Hours | MFAH Campus Map
Community Partner: Japan-American Society of Houston
Underwriting for the Film Department is provided by Tenaris and American Friends of Fundacion Proa Inc., The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation, and the Vaughn Foundation.
Generous funding is provided by The Consulate General of the Republic of Korea; Foundation for Independent Media Arts; Nina and Michael Zilkha; Lois Chiles; Franci Neely; Carrin Patman and Jim Derrick; Ms. Laurence Unger; and ILEX Foundation.
High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
(Japan, 1963, 143 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digital