Ringu ( Ring)

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Ringu ( Ring)

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Ringu ( Ring)

Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Hiroyuki Sanada

A grainy, enigmatic videotape has the power to kill people seven days after they watch it. This brilliant premise fueled the 2002 Hollywood hit The Ring, but before that it conquered Japan in Ringu, H...( read more  read more... )ideo Nakata's quietly unsettling study in terror. Fans of the U.S. version will find a less elaborate storyline and more primal fear in the original; the basic plot, however, still has a worried reporter (Nanako Matsushima) tracking down the meaning of the video--and, having watched it herself, she has only a week to work. The film's calm, economical style actually adds to the creeping sense of dread throughout, and the hair-curling set-pieces stand out in contrast. Like an old photograph of something evil, Ringu has the strange-but-familiar power to unnerve. Guaranteed, its effect will linger for at least seven days. Longer... if you're lucky. --Robert Horton

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Ringu ( Ring) Recent Reviews
  • SirPant
    September 14, 2009
    SirPant
    The best contemporary horror film in ages that really bought life to a struggling genre. Absolutely terrifying and an 'Asia extreme' classic!
  • flixsterman
    May 14, 2009
    flixsterman
    I enjoyed the American remake [The Ring], this one is even better.
  • FangsFirst
    April 8, 2009
    FangsFirst
    Oh goodness. This is an incredibly dangerous review for me, as most who know me know. Let me attempt to restrain myself from the natural response I have to reviewing this film and try to encapsulate my boundless irritation with the abysmal remake as follows: the American film (...( read more)>The Ring, of course) is a remake of this film. It claims to be based on Koji Suzuki's novel, but that's, frankly, bullshit. Watch the two back to back and you can see exactly how right I am on this--considering the outright theft of a few scenes (even unnecessarily similar ones, like someone standing on a balcony in the rain), it should be obvious. If you maintain that I'm delusional and the film states right there in the credits that it is based on the novel, I urge you to read, if not the novel, then any synopsis of it you can find. It is not based on the novel It is based on this film. As if this weren't bad enough (uncredited theft!), still speaking from objective facts, it was DreamWorks, who distributed the remake, that bought the home video release rights to this film. What did they do with them? They released a bare bones DVD, not even with the obvious (and simple) bonus features of trailer and "the video," and gave it a full 29.99 MSRP, and a cover that spends a third of its space advertising their film. It was buried thoroughly enough that at the time of The Ring's release, no one around me even knew there was a film behind it. I would say, "You know that's a remake, right?" and they would say, "What? A remake of what?" All of this is a sharp jab at some principles I tend to hold pretty dear. I do not like the remake on principle, and I also think it was ruinous garbage that failed to live up to its predecessor. I want that out of the way (though inevitably I'll still be comparing the two before long) because if you love the remake dearly, you and I are not going to get along on this subject, dear reader, and you may be better off reading something else--or, if you have an open mind, perhaps seeing exactly why I like the original so much more.

    Tomoko Oishi (Yuko Takeuchi) and Masami Kurahashi (Hitomi Sato) are two high school-aged girls in Japan, Masami bemusedly telling Tomoko about the legend of a cursed video tape that causes any viewer to die seven days after they watch it. Tomoko's uneasy silence leads Masami to believe that Tomoko has something to say, and so she announces, uncomfortably, that she and some friends spent the night somewhere and saw a "weird video." Masami thinks she's just pulling her leg, but when the phone rings, Tomoko is clearly gripped with absolute terror, and Masami decides she was telling the truth. Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) is a reporter and aunt of Tomoko, and also has a coincidental interest in this growing legend of the cursed videotape, interviewing various kids about it, always being led back to the Izu peninsula, where she eventually goes to find the tape itself, or the channel on which it was broadcast--or whatever she can find. She does stumble across the tape and receives the phone call legend says she will, announcing her approaching death. She takes the tape to her ex-husband Ryuji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada), who says he will look at it further after viewing it himself, his initial skepticism replaced by a less hysterical fear, likely induced by his mild "sensitivity" to unusual things. The two of them become determined to unravel the mystery of the video, and hopefully save themselves in the process. The clues lead them through newspapers and legends of psychics, and to the girl known as Sadako (Rie Inou).

    Ringu is a subdued and careful film, bearing that now seemingly unmistakable mark of the Asian cinematic eye that is a sort of nonchalant indifference to what is occurring. This is very different from the (intentionally and knowingly) manipulative western eye, which typically involves itself, if not as a character, then at least as a way of magnifying our view of characters and their emotions. In terms of viewers this can be helpful or crippling: some need an extra leg-up on understanding the characters in front of them, others like to keep that distance so they can see the whole at any given time. Others, of course, just acclimate themselves to the film as it's intended--which a good director should be able to work any viewer into, even if it isn't their plan to do so. This is typically done by taking an interesting story or character or concept and filming it in such a way that it draws the viewer in, regardless of their emotional involvement. This isn't a film that asks you to scream, "Don't go into that room!" because it makes clear that the characters are very separate from you (not that this will stop those who feel the need to scream out such warnings). We are watching Ryuji and Asakawa try to solve this mystery and save themselves and experiencing it voyeuristically, making it all the more terrifying for the fact that we couldn't help if we wanted to, because there's a clear wall between us.

    Hideo Nakata, as director, is very successful at building this wall, with careful pans and swings of the camera placing it outside the context of the characters in the film without being overtly distracting. He gives us a view of all necessary elements without unnecessarily involving us in them, never giving an extreme close-up unless the events themselves call for them, as a way to heighten and enhance experience of the event, instead of as a way to telegraph to the viewer the exact meaning and importance of any image. When a character sees something startling, unusual or even supernatural, it does not jump to the specific element of their view that is relevant to events, but rather to the entirety of what they see, with a framing that centers on the important object or event without leaving the area of their own focus. Once again, this separation enhances not only the visuals themselves, but the dramatic experience of them by keeping us tied to events more than involved in characters, able to see them as distant but familiar strangers, people we do not interact with but could see any day.

    As promised I must establish the reasons this film succeeds where its remake fails, because it's the simplest of comparisons and a readily available one. I work pretty hard on avoiding anything resembling a spoiler in most of my reviews, but there's one element these two films share that is most definitely just that. I'll lay out the evidence that otherwise is involved, then determine whether it's necessary to finally hit that last mark and definitively spoil both films. This is a preliminary warning that you ought not get to involved in reading this paragraph.

    The essence of difference between the two films comes down to two primary elements: method and explanation. Both have methods, both have styles, an element closely tied to the method in this context--but only one leans on style. Both have some semblance of explanation, but only one goes to great pains to explain as much as it can while still attempting to remain "mysterious." The Ring is very heavy on style, drowning the images in a cool colour filter and draining anything natural from them, using all sorts of standard Western film-making clichés to establish its point--when the phone rings, a smooth but rapid zoom on it makes sure we realize that, yes, THE PHONE IS RINGING. When there is a death, a startle-jump shot of the body, heavily made up and backed by standard musical stings gives us the cheap scare that naturally results from loud noises. This is where the methodology ties into the style: The Ring's method is painfully obvious and overt, slamming the viewer's head into the wall (or perhaps the screen) to emphasize any and every event. The "video" within the film is like a bad student film--"The ladder represents man's inevitable fall as he attempts to ascend the rungs of life in social climbing, forever denigrating his own spirit, sacrificing it to be a soulless invertebrate, torturing himself before leading to the suicide of his own soul!"--and goes on far too long. It also (like the film itself) relies on cheap shocks and gross-outs. A nail. Crawling millipedes (or centipedes, I forget). Maggots. Burning trees. It's screaming out about its own symbols and yet pretending it's subtle, all the while casually inserting ridiculously obvious attempts to unsettle its audience. From this, these obvious symbols, the film proceeds to explain itself to death. Samara is a real girl who blah blah blah, abuse, parents, horses--this is too much. Why is the Western horror cinema so often obsessed with explanation? Explanation ruins horror, because it eliminates the fear of the unknown by making the unknown known. If there's a dramatic aim (such as Stir of Echoes) it becomes an acceptable loss because there's another intention behind it. The shallow, superficial, CGI-laden The Ring is clearly intended to do no more than scare its viewer, because it does not concern itself with character or meaning. Meaning is erased as the story progresses and cheaply undoes its own emotional explanation in favour of shocking the viewer. It commits a cardinal sin by telegraphing what is supposed to be the biggest scare in the movie.

    As I say though, this is a subject for comparison and contrast. Ringu took an entirely different approach in its creation. When a phone rings, it rings like it does in reality. We do not teleport to a phone and lean in to look at it in detail whenever it rings. We hear it and often it startles us--even if there's no real reason to, because it is an unexpected and loud noise--but more importantly, a "naturally occurring" one. The phone does ring. Music does not jump out from behind us whenever there is a murderer lurking in the shadows (though I guess that would be nice for self-preservation and cutting down on such crimes). There is a bit of the startle-scare in Ringu, but it usually leads to the feeling of crawling skin rather than a leap out of a seat thanks to a shot of adrenaline. The words that describe Ringu and its atmosphere are usually words like "unnerving" and "creepy," rather than "scary." This is because Ringu builds atmosphere. Lighting is mostly natural (though probably not natural light, of course) and the people in the film do not leap up and scream at each other to enhance tension. Tension and suspense occur within the atmosphere of the film itself, the disconnect from the characters pushing the focus to the tone of the film instead. It builds to an unsettling climax in the first scene and then builds again in the same way as we find our main character. The "video" is weird and obscure, not clear in anything, not showing a focus on anything, and seeming to simply be a collection of random and unrelated home videos, mixed with some peculiar and unnatural ones, like a newspaper article whose kana swirl and twitch. The difference between this film and its remake comes down to the scene both are most remembered for. By the time it occurs in the remake, we know an awful lot about this girl Samara (the Sadako character) and have heard her speak and seen some of her life. When it occurs in the original, she is still an enigma, an unseen face and all the more disturbing for it. When the infamous scene occurs, we do not jump and shout and beg for the characters to run, we are overcome with the urge to back away from our television sets rapidly and hide, unable to look away despite the pleas of our terrified minds to do so. It succeeds admirably at the kind of scares you can't easily manufacture--the kind its remake is obsessed with.

    The contributor I would most like to thank for their work, though, is composer Kenji Kawai, who creates a brilliant score, with a nice, simple piano piece for the little bits of drama, and an unholy racket of contrasting atonal instruments that build into a sound that makes you want to crawl out of your own flesh at the right moments--if it wants to keep watching, it can keep doing so, but you have to get away from this sound and these images. Kawai uses a relative of that oh-so-familiar, rapidly failing calliope that sounds like it's filling with icicles, that downward cascade of goose-bump raising non-harmony we know so well and marries it to sharp string noises and burbling electronic low-end. It's absolutely magnificent in its beautiful terror.
  • stopitgoaway
    September 5, 2008
    stopitgoaway
    In 2002, Dreamworks released a movie on American theaters called THE RING, by Gore Verbenski. It expanded to great lengths around the world. People claimed they had never been so scared while watching a movie in their entire life. Critics had mixed opinions of it, most for the be...( read more)tter. But while the entire world was screaming to THE RING, others decided to reach out for the original version that Dreamworks decided to "hide" while THE RING was in it's theatrical run. The 1998 Japanese phenomenon RINGU (a.k.a RING.)

    Based on a 1991 novel by Koji Suzuki (claimed as the Japanese Stephen King) RINGU tells the story of reporter Asakawa Reiko (Nanako Matsushima), a middle-class Japanese single mother. Her latest story is the investigation of a mysterious urban legend that circulates around high schools about a tape that kills whoever watches it seven days later. She learns that five teenagers recently died from a heart attack at the exact same time, and that they were all friends who spent a vacation on a cabin resort exactly one week before. It becomes up close and personal when she finds out one of them was her recently deceased cousin Tomoko (Yuku Takeuchi.)

    Reiko eventually tracks down and watches the mysterious tape, and in one of the movie's many chilling moments, receives a strange phone call confirming that the urban legend is true, an element that reminded me of the 1992's similar CANDYMAN. She finds help from her ex-husband Ryiuji (Hirouyuki Sanada), a psychic with paranormal powers (an element obviously removed from the US version). Both Reiko and Ryiuji examine the tape carefully and realize it was shot in a nearby volcanic island. With only a few days left, they travel to the island where the dark, disturbing truth remains hidden, waiting to be discovered.

    Taking liberties from the infilmable novel, director Hideo Nakata (DARK WATER, CHAOS) and screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi (DON'T LOOK UP) were able to create what is perhaps one of the most impressive horror films of recent memory, challenged maybe only by the less-subliminal AUDITION. Nakata's direction already explains what makes RINGU so unique: The absence of music, limited photography, simple camera movements, and no cheap jump scares. The fear in RINGU comes from skin-deep slow burn. If you are looking for jumps, watch the American remake instead. Which brings us to the infamous RINGU vs. THE RING internet battle: A pointless one.

    The 2002 remake had more technological resources and a stronger desire to freak out the audience. Director Gore Verbenski decided not to copy the original and went for a less subliminal more artsy Dario Argento dreamy approach with a Nine Inch Nails vibe and a David Fischer love for rain. While THE RING improved on the upcoming flaws of the original, it had problems of it's own. Not wanting to change the subject, let me tell you the Japanese version is the one to see. The problem is that most people who watch the recent remake will hate RINGU, and vice-versa.

    Unlike THE RING, RINGU avoids CGI shocks and cheap jump scares like a plague. You won't find any suspenseful moments, chases, or any physical struggles between the cast here. While the remake scared you with fast zooms, weird camera tricks, and inhuman freaky bursts of weird noises, RINGU scares you with it's lack of... sadism. A good example are the videotapes. The videotape seen in THE RING is a Nine Inch Nails video, in a good way, with very weird supernatural images and weird gross-out quick glimpses. The original's videotape is shorter and maybe even weirder. It shows you different but equally impressive images that belong to a David Lynch nightmare while a "scratching" noise is heard on the background. A noise that was unfortunately omitted in the remake. The Japanese tape can be either laughable or scary depending on the mentality of whoever watches it.

    But what makes RINGU the phenomenon that it is today is the character of Yamura Sadako, who turns out to be pulling the strings. Not wanting to spoil the plot, I will just say that never since Hanniball Lacter has a character with such little screen time terrorized the audience as good. The American doppelganger Samara was badly used in the remake. While what made Sadako scary was that she was pure evil, the remake's screenwriter Ehren Kruger tried to turn her into a Batman-like repressed character that you are supposed to feel sorry for. This terribly reduces the impact of "the scene". Which leads me to "the scene" itself. If you ask anyone who watched either version what "the scene" is, they will probably know. Let me tell you that "the scene" is done much better in this version. I will go as far as saying "the scene" is hands down one of the scariest moments in cinematographic history, very close to the shower scene and the climax of DON'T LOOK NOW. The remake tried to hard with it's own "scene", adding CGI effects, quick cuts, and many other gross-out elements that the original didn't need.

    But RINGU is not without it's flaws. Either the fact that I am not Asian, or maybe that I am not familiar with psychics, but the whole Ryiuji character left me wishing for more. Maybe the subtitle translation didn't make it clear enough, but I couldn't connect to that way he always had an answer to everything. Not that Sanada's performance is lacking. He steals the scene and carries out most of the movie. Remember Bruce Lee in GREEN HORNET? Maybe not, but that is Ryiuji here. And Matsushima is equally good, although she is given less to do than her American counterpart Naomi Watts. I will give credit to the US remake by eliminating the psychic subplot. I won't forgive the fact that Ryuji's American counterpart is a pointless and boring sidekick which is what ironically gives Watts her chance to shine.

    RINGU is still a superior horrifying experience that you will not easily forget. Forget the sequels (RING 2), forget the spin-offs (RASEN), the rip-offs (FEARDOTCOM), or remakes (RING VIRUS and THE RING). It all rounds up to here. Be sure to watch Nakata's equally good DARK WATER, which is already getting a remake on early works. Oh, the humanity...

    *phone rings*
  • EarthlyAlien
    May 30, 2008
    EarthlyAlien
    [on the ship to Oshima Island]
    Reiko Asakawa: "How did the rumours about the video even start in the first place?
    Ryuji Takayama: This kind of thing... it doesn't start by one person telling a story. It's more like everyone's fear just takes on a life of its own....( read more)
    Reiko Asakawa: Fear...
    Ryuji Takayama: Or maybe it isn't our fear, maybe it's what we secretly hope is true."

    Photobucket

    (Warning: The Following Review Will Contain Spoilers)

    A decade after its original release in Japan, it is not exactly inaccurate to think that Hideo Nakata's Ringu is important merely for its influence. The film, after all, is the widely-acknowledged precursor (although the Japanese have been making similarly plotted ghost stories decades before this) to the pan-Asian phenomenon that sparked horror film productions in South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Philippines, and elsewhere. The explanation is rather simple: Ringu, apart from being an effective moneymaker in its native Japan, demonstrated capably the commercial viability of horror films as export products when screening and DVD rights of the film were purchased in foreign territories.

    Eventually, the interest in the film grew to the point of the film being remade in Hollywood. As a result of this unprecedented demand, the commercial clamour for slow-paced but effective ghost stories ballooned, giving reason for Ringu's stylistic descendants like Takashi Shimizu's Ju-on (The Grudge, 2000), Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Kairo (Pulse, 2001), The Pang Brothers' The Eye (2002), Nakata's own Dark Water (2004) and Takashi Miike's One Missed Call (2004) to have their own Hollywood reincarnations, for better or for worse. However, to acknowledge Ringu merely for its influence is to unfairly discredit its vast artistic merits.

    Apart from its indubitable influence, Ringu is a great horror film. In the film's most famous scene, Sadako, her face covered with imposing locks of long black hair and her body by an ominous white robe, crawls out of the television. Her movements are awkward yet terrifying, pointing out to the hidden frame that is possibly twisted and contorted beyond human imagination. Nakata cuts to Sadako's immobilized victim, clinging desperately to his life in its inevitably grim end. Nakata cuts back to Sadako, this time closing up to her face where she reveals from her long hair what is arguably the film's most shocking moment: an eye, monstrously malformed yet trapped in a malevolent gaze. The gaze is lethal as her victim eventually freezes right in the middle of a hapless scream. The scene actually happens near the very end of the film and is the only time we witness first hand something supernaturally horrific happen. The rest of the film actually dwells in a simmering state of fear, where Nakata meticulously crafts an atmosphere that foretells an ominous and overpowering danger despite the scarcity of actual, visceral, and physical scares.

    As it turns out, it is that penultimate scare that stuck to the film-going public. Ringu's heirs approximate the same visceral quality of that scene, populating their respective films with scares and shocks that may rival Ringu in repeated abundance and disgust but never in integrity. Only a few successfully incorporated the palpable psychological mindplay that made Ringu modern cult film. The rest concentrated on devising new horror gimmickry, conceptualizing and creating variations of the effective Sadako model and similar long-haired female ghosts with slow yet sure murderous intentions. With a relentless bombardment of gore, shocks, and cheap thrills, the requisite atmosphere of subtle dread so expertly displayed by Nakata in Ringu is eventually neglected. The film remains untouchable.

    This atmosphere is perfectly captured in the film's first sequence. Two teenage girls, Tomoko (Yuko Takeuchi) and her friend, indulge in late night stories during their sleepover. The friend fancifully tells the story of a cursed video. The giddy mood transforms into menace, as Tomoko declares that she saw a similar video while in vacation with a bunch of friends. She expounds that the screening was followed by a mysterious call, stating that she has exactly a week to live. At that instance, Nakata punctures the safety of a girl's night out with a hint of danger. We learn that it has been exactly a week since Tomoko saw the video tape. The other girl breaks the fearsome silence, forcing Tomoko to admit that she's merely joking. Tomoko succumbs, and both of them continue their discussion on romance, boys, and other juvenilia. We assume safety again, at least for a while until the phone suddenly rings and the girls stop talking and the atmosphere drowns in dread. The two hurry down to answer the call. It turns out to be another friend, and both laugh at the absurdity of their fears. Assured of the impossibility of death by videotape, normalcy happens and the friends excuses herself. Tomoko goes to the kitchen. Nakata frames it in a way that we see Tomoko in the foreground, and in the background is the living room, partially covered by translucent glass. The television mysteriously turns on, its foreboding blue glow apparent through the translucent glass. Tomoko checks the living room out, turns the television off, returns to the kitchen, before her fateful death.

    That initial sequence plays out deliberately, with Nakata in complete control of the mental and psychological repercussions of the scene. He blankets the opening sequence with a façade of absolute mundanity and juvenilia, before introducing, in careful trickles, his brilliant masterplan: for the audience to abandon all notions of logic and reality so that his horror, which is suggestive of an alternate universe of otherworldly deadly curses spreading through available technology, may not only be palatable but also effective. In fact, the entire film is enveloped in that same mixture of mundanity and the supernatural. Structured similarly like the first sequence, Ringu stretches allowable logic until it inevitably unhinges, where Nakata commits his masterful centrepiece (Sadako's out-of-the-TV attack) which is both ludicrous and powerful, where ordinary notions of reality are completely erased to ease the plausibility of the palpable cap to Nakata's exercise of suggestive terror.

    Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) and Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada) are divorced couple who are maximizing their one week to live to figure out a way to cancel the videotape's curse on themselves and their son Yoichi (Rikiya Otaka). While on their time-set quest, their interactions echo their former domestic relations. Such is most evident during the sequence under the vacation cabin where Sadako's well is kept hidden. Ryuji is rushingly filling the pails with dark water, while Reiko is pulling the full pails up to the surface to empty them. Under Ryuji's physical and moral superiority, Reiko becomes subservient and domestic. As Reiko falters under the dictates of time and fatigue and Ryuji is left with the thinking and the working, we become witness to the sudden spark of domestic trouble, where both succumb to the ineptitude of their team work.

    Nakata never reveals the cause of Reiko and Ryuji's break-up, but we do get a glimpse, forced out by their unlikely predicament, of the perpetual aches of their marital life: a mixture of Ryuji's dominating impertinence and Reiko's servile nature. Ringu becomes something more than a mere ghost story. It starts to resemble a grim family drama, where a previously broken couple discover and rediscover themselves as they raise (or save, in this case) their child.

    These careful subtleties in both theme and style are what's lacking in Gore Verbinski's technically apt but dry The Ring, which concentrated more on the supernatural aspect thus giving due attention to its scary little girl named Samara. Gone is Nakata's discriminating plotting, perfectly sequenced to evoke a consistent dread throughout in preparation for Sadako's memorable haunting; or the minutely flavoured family mechanics which is replaced with indiscriminate characterizations of Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson's ex-spouses, spiced up with divorce-resultant indifference and angst, thus unable to open up to more contained and repressed emotions or involuntary reenactments of their former domestic life. It's unfortunate that these clones and remakes seem to have overshadowed Nakata's far more clever work. Ringu simply deserves much more credit than what it is presently given.
  • WilliamRobertEccleston
    December 19, 2009
    WilliamRobertEccleston
    The best of Asian horror.
  • eryri
    December 17, 2009
    eryri
    Forget the crappy US remake, watch the creepy and far superior original movie. The pivotal scene near the end is certain to scare the crap out of anybody!
  • 82mistam
    December 12, 2009
    82mistam
    A real horror that will scare you, especially if you watch it on vhs like I did.
  • kluroda01
    November 23, 2009
    kluroda01
    regardless.. this is the best contemporary horror movie to date.. gives the chills like no other.. plus the girls are so cute in it!
  • CocoCoopah
    November 17, 2009
    CocoCoopah
    Alot better than the American version
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