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Ringu
Ring
Japan 1998
produced by
Takashige Ichise, Shinya Kawai, Takenori Sento, Masato Hara (exetutive) for Kadokawa Shoten, Omega Project, Pony Canyon, Imagica, Asmik Ace Entertainment, Omega Project/Toho
directed by Hideo Nakata
starring Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani, Yuko Takeuchi, Hitomi Sato, Yoichi Numata, Yutaka Matsushige, Katsumi Muramatsu, Rikiya Otaka, Masako, Daisuke Ban, Hiroshi Sakuma, Yurei Yanagi, Yoko Ohshima, Kiriko Shimizu, Makoto Kakeda, Rie Inoo, Hiroyuki Tanabe, Miwako Kaji, Yoko Honma, Asami Nagata, Yukiko Shimodaira, Keiko Yoshida, Yoshiko Matsumaru, Ayumu Naose, Maki Ikeda, Takashi Takayama, Chihiro Shirai, Toshihiko Takeda, Mantaro Koichi, Shinichi Noda, Shigefumi Nakai, Yuki Takahata, Mutsuko Oshima, Taku Kobayashi, Hiromi Murata, Kazuhiro Yokoyama, Mizuho Kinoshita, Toshinori Yoshino, Asami Ishikawa
screenplay by Hiroshi Takahashi, based on the novel by Koji Suzuki, music by Kenji Kawai
Ring
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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There is an urban legend that says that somewhere out there there is
a video that kills you within 7 days after watching it. Nosey reporter
Reiko (Nanako Matsushima),
who had a death in her family linked to that video, wants to get to the
bottom of it all, and soon finds the video, watches it, receives a
phonecall immediately afterwards stating "You saw it" (part of
the same urban legend), and suddenly knows she is doomed, with only 7
more days to live. Out of despair, she calls her ex-husbband Ryuji
(Hiroyuki Sanada), who who has some psychic powers and who watches the video, too, before they try to find
clues to end the video's deadly curse - though they have nothing to go
on but the video itself, and to make matters worse, Yoichi (Rikiya
Otaka), their son soon watches the video as well. Eventually, they come
across the story of Shizuko (Masako), a mystic woman on remote island
Oshima who predidcted volcanic eruptions 40 years ago and was soon
abused as a media attraction by a professor (Daisuke Ban) and one day jumped into a
volcano. As it turns out, she had a daughter, Sadako (Rie Inoo), though, who had
much greater mystic powers than Shizuko and who could kill by thought alone. She was
eventually thrown into a well and left there to die - but apparently her fury was manifested on the
cursed videotape. With Reiko's death only hours
away, she and Ryuji race to said well and try to set Sadako's spirit
free after 40 years - but not only is time running out, they also only
have a theory that this will work, and if not, they are all doomed ... Based
on a rather mediocre horror novel that had already been the source for a TV
movie, Ringu proved itself to be one of the greatest horror
movies of the 1990s as well as the movie that truly put J-horror on the map in
the West - and that's achieved by trusting the impact of its premise and
carrying it with atmospheric filmmaking and an emphasis on suspense and slowburn
horror rather than a barrage of special effects and over-fancy camerawork, and
it relies on a deliberately slow pace to let its story unfold to its full
creepiness - and despite leaving many a thing unexplained, the story comes
across as solid and air-tight. And of course, a strong key cast doesn't hurt one
bit either to make this a must-see for all self respecting horror fans. Eventually,
the film did spawn (by 2019) 6 sequels (Rasen/Spiral, Ringu 2
and Ringu 0, and in the 2010s Sadako
3D, Sadako 3D 2 and Sadako vs. Kayako)
plus a TV series as well as a Korean remake (Ring Virus)
and of course the obligatory American one, none of
it equalling this movie's quality, though.
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