‘Highest 2 Lowest’ Teaser: Denzel Washington, A$AP Rocky Team Up for Spike Lee Joint

Denzel Washington warns “all money ain’t good money” in the first teaser trailer for the upcoming Spike Lee joint Highest 2 Lowest.

A24 and Apple released the preview on Monday, May 5 ahead of the film’s premiere later this month at the Cannes Film Festival.

Washington narrates the 50-second teaser and insists there’s more to life “than just making money,” as James Brown’s “The Payback” plays in the background.

The teaser shows quick cuts of New York City, protests, a shootout, stacks of cash, and rapper A$AP Rocky being escorted into a building by police officers. The rapper plays an embattled music artist named Yung Felon, who’s been accused of a crime.

Washington, a two-time Oscar winner, leads the cast as a music mogul known for having the “best ears in the business.” But when he’s targeted in a ransom plot, he faces a life-or-death moral dilemma, according to the official description.

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Oscar nominee Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction), Ilfenesh Hadera (Godfather of Harlem), Michael Potts (The Wire), Dean Winters (Law & Order: SVU), and John Douglas Thompson (The Gilded Age) also star alongside rapper Ice Spice.

The film is inspired by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller High and Low. Kurosawa’s version followed a shoe company executive at the center of an extortion plot.

In addition to directing the English-language version, Spike Lee executive produces through his 40 Acres And A Mule Filmworks.

The Apple Original Films project marks the fifth collaboration between Oscar winner Lee and Washington after Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X, He Got Game, and Inside Man.

Highest 2 Lowest arrives in theaters on Aug. 22 and begins streaming Sept. 5 on Apple TV+.

Watch the teaser trailer below. Washington asks in the video, “Can you handle it?”