Ringu

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

Horrorphile - August 2007

Ringu (Ring)

August 31st 2007 03:35

Ringu (1998) is the highest-grossing movie in Japanese history. It’s based on a novel by Kôji Suzuki and has a sequel and a prequel, and a Hollywood remake (and sequel). Curiously, it originated as a made-for-television movie which aired in 1995 called Ring: Kanzen-ban (but this bawdy low-fi version is generally considered risible, sexploitative trash).

Nanako Matsushima as Reiko

Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) is a journalist researching a story on a 'cursed video' and interviewing teenagers about it. When her niece Tomoko (Yuko Takeuchi) dies of apparent sudden heart failure Reiko investigates. She finds out that some of Tomoko's friends who had been on a holiday with Tomoko the week before had died on exactly the same night, same time, in the same exact way. Reiko checks out the cabin where the teens had stayed and borrows a curious unlabelled video tape from reception. Much to Reiko’s dismay it is the cursed videotape.

Hiroyuki Sanada as Ryuji

Her ex-husband Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada) helps Reiko try and solve the mystery. Reiko makes a copy for him. The investigation takes them to a volcanic island where they discover that the video has a connection to a psychic, who died 30 years earlier, and her child Sadako (Rie Inou).

The cursed teenagers

Director Hideo Nakata achieved a genuinely outlandish and frightening movie. Yet it’s surrealism and inherent silliness somehow never capsizes the movie, and it features one of modern horror’s creepiest sequences: the grainy black and white video footage of Sadako emerging from the well, her long lanky black hair obscuring her face as she slowly, jerkily approaches the camera, and then steps through the lens and climbs out of the television! Yikes!

Reiko embracing death in the well

Apparently the novelist was inspired by Poltergeist (1982), which was one of the scariest movies I saw as a young lad, so I can relate. The premise of an urban myth: a sequence of images cursing whomever watches them, but pronouncing a length of time (a week) before a phone call and subsequent death strikes, is a little tenuous, but when dealing when the Japanese supernatural, all bets are off.

The cursed videotape

Ringu is a richly atmospheric film that lingers on images, yet its contrivances solidify its cumulative effect. What makes Ringu so unnerving is what the audience don’t get to see as much as what they do. There is as much darkness is there is light. The fabric of a dream stretched into reality and inverted into a nightmare; Ringu is a plague of visual doom.

It was Ringu that spearheaded the Western fascination and admiration for Japanese horror movies and it was Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge (2003) which cemented the respect. The Hollywood remake, The Ring (2002), starring Naomi Watts, certainly doesn’t possess the same dark other-wordly vibe which permeates Ringu so succinctly, but it does garner some scary moments.

Rie Inou as Sadako

If you’ve never seen any foreign horror movies Ringu is a great place to start … because it never ends.

Here is the cursed video footage ... beware!

118

Vote

Subscribe to this blog

Email this post to a friend

Go to the Orble Film Channel

Start your own blog

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

Related Posts:

Relate This Post

[ Previous - Ringu 2 (Ring 2) ]

[ Next - What's your DEMON NAME? ]

Comments

8 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Terry

August 31st 2007 03:49

MysTerry's Mansion
Theatre of the mind

I can't get over the fact that there are great horror movies out there (with subtitles mind you), that are remade every year.

This was scarier than the Ring, but I was put off by Japenese horror when I was working eight days straight and watching Ju-on. For some reason that kid and the horrible sounds she made unnerved me...lol.

Great review and great film.

Hurdy Gur

Terry

Comment by JohnDoe

August 31st 2007 03:57

Film & TV on DVD

Great review Bryn,
This original version freaked me out when I saw it on the bigscreen, but on Video it was even more unnerving....

Hated the prettied up remake that didn't follow through with the movies juicier ideas and removed all surreal suspense and replaced it with dull cliched technique, boo..

Comment by Lara M

August 31st 2007 06:51

Love Speaks
Food Slate

A detailed review & images that will leave me with (yet another!) sleepless night...!
"Ringu" is (too) super-freaky...I haven't finished watching it

...and I ain't gonna click on the video footage...

...Ju-On is as freaky too...

Comment by Damo

August 31st 2007 08:38

I bever got see the original but I did see Ringu2 on SBS.
Very well made and very Japanese creepiness.

Watch Ring on video recently. And just is the cursed video finished i got a phone call.
What a crack up.

Great review.

Comment by Nickoftime's Sanity Corner

September 1st 2007 04:01

Bryn,

indeed this was a great film, and I have a difficult time watching any movie with subtitles, it annoys the hell outta me...

But this one? Wow! It was pretty damned scary lemme tell ya...

Fantasic review as always my friend,

Take care,

Nick

Comment by KylieW

September 3rd 2007 03:25

Celebrity Obsession

Bryn,

Oh, I knew the The Ring was a remake of a Japanese movie, and I always wondered if it was any good, cos I wasn't a big fan of the movie.

I'm going to hunt this out and watch it!

Kylie

Comment by Bryn

September 4th 2007 02:46

Horrorphile

Lara, yes, Ju-On is sensational, probably my fave J-horror!

Damo, that's priceless mate!

Nick, glad to hear you rose above your dislike of subs.

Kylie, yes, check it out indeed!

Comment by Cibbuano

September 6th 2007 05:16

Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak

Bryn, I saw the American remake in the cinema, and it scared me senseless for days. Not the actual film, but that crazy Japanese sense of horror. One thing I did like about Verbinski's version was the colour filter to make everything nauseating, especially the cursed tape.

It was with some disappointment that I watched the original Japanese Ring a year later, and it didn't hit me the same way, since the story was spoiled for me.

btw, the actress who plays the girls mother is a real cutie - I remember that!

[ Previous - Ringu 2 (Ring 2) ]

[ Next - What's your DEMON NAME? ]

Add A Comment

To create a fully formatted comment please click here.

CLICK HERE TO LOGIN | CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Name or Orble Tag

Home Page (optional)

Comments

Notify me of replies

Notify extra people about this comment

Is this a private comment?

List the Email Addresses or Orble Tags of the people you would like to be notified about this comment

One per line max of 30

List the Email Addresses or Orble Tags of the people you would like to be notified about this private comment thread. Only the people in this list will be able to see or reply to your comment.

One per line max of 30

Your Name
(for the email going out to the above list, it can be different to your Orble Tag)

Your Email Address

(optional)

(required for reply notification)

Submit

February 2010

4 Posts

January 2010

12 Posts

December 2009

13 Posts