For some bizarre reason, I stumbled onto the High&Low series when the first movie came out in 2016. I was hooked instantly. The franchise is Japanese, and Shigeaki Kubo has directed most of the major entries.
By that point I was already deep into K-dramas and C-dramas, and I’ll say it outright: Korean action movies are better than most US action movies these days. The choreography, the camera angles, the shot composition.No bizarre shaky cam nonsense.
Asian dramas and action flicks share something American productions rarely bother with: attention to detail. That’s exactly what hooked me on High&Low.
It’s a franchise built by Exile Hiro and LDH around the Exile Tribe talent roster, and it shows in how much care goes into every frame, not just the leads.
The fights that ruined other action movies for me
The container yard fight in High&Low: The Movie (2016) — I’ve watched it something like 300 times now, just to study the details in the background fights.
Nobody’s flopping to the ground or throwing air punches the way you’d see in something like The Dark Knight. Every single person in frame, even the extras, is running actual choreography.
High&Low: The Movie 2 / End of Sky (2017) does the same thing. I spent most of that movie just admiring how the director treats background noise and background fights like a main character in their own right, not filler.
Yeah, some of it is cringe. Some characters, some of the dialogue. Genuine facepalm territory. But after years of C-dramas and K-dramas, J-dramas leaning into that same over-the-top energy doesn’t bother me anymore.
It’s part of the package. And honestly, that’s the trade I’ll take every time.
I’d rather sit through a few cringe conversations than watch another Hollywood fight scene with no real choreography behind it. For me, fight-scene craft carries this franchise further than any of its dialogue ever could.
When they announced The New World
I got genuinely excited when I saw the announcement for High&Low: The New World. This is being billed as the final feature film in the franchise, picking up after High&Low: The Movie 3 / Final Mission.
It’s confirmed for a 2027 release, directed by Shigeaki Kubo alongside Norahisa Hiranuma, and the first wave of returning cast has already been named: Akira, Naoto, Alan Shirahama, Kazuma Kawamura, and Hokuto Yoshino.
I bumped into the announcement completely at random on Reddit and haven’t gone digging for full cast details yet. I don’t want to spoil my own expectations before I have to.
What I am hoping for: the full return of Murayama, Rocky, the Amamiya brothers, and the entire S.W.O.R.D alliance.
And more than anything, I want one final epic clash between ICE and Hiroto Amamiya, played by Hiroomi Tosaka.
I’ve got a completely unreasonable man-crush on this guy’s hairstyle and general aura, and I will not be examining that further. (I am talking about the guy on the bottom right.
Crossovers again?
Beyond the three main films, the franchise also produced two spinoffs I’d put right up there with the originals:
- High&Low: The Worst (2019) — a massive fan-favorite crossover between the High&Low and Worst/Crows universes
- High&Low: The Worst X / Cross (2022) — the sequel to that crossover, and just as good
I don’t watch a huge amount of stuff these days, but High&Low has stayed at the top of my watchlist since 2016, and it’s not really close. Whatever The New World turns out to be, I’m going in with expectations way too high to be healthy, and I’m fine with that.
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