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Ringu: Kanzen-ban
Ringu: Jiko ka! Henshi ka! 4-tsu no Inochi wo Ubau Shojo no Onnen
Japan 1995
produced by
Hidehiro Iwadera, Noriayasu Ueki for Fuji Television, Newteles
directed by Chisui Takigawa
starring KAtsunori Takahashi, Yoshio Harada, Ayane Miura, Mai Tachihara, Maha Hamada, Tomorowo Taguchi, Akiko Hinagata, Takayuki Godai, Shigeyuki Nakamura, Akira Sakamoto, Aya Mizuno, Kyoko Donowaki, Kikuko Hashimoto, Seiko Seno, Koichi Koshimura, Seiroku Nakazawa, Yoshinari Yoshie, Tadayoshi Ueda, Ryushi Mizukami, Kansuke Shimizu, Yuka Torashima, Manami Umeda, Nattsu Tanabashi, Yuka Takeshima, Kazu Itsuki, Miho Morikawa, Koji Shimizu
screenplay by Joji Iida, Taizo Soshigaya, based on the novel Ringu by Koji Suzuki, music by Yoshihiro Ike
Ring
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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When reporter Azakawa (Kazunori Takahashi) learns about four perfectly
healthy teenagers who have died from heart attacks at the exact same time
in different parts of the city, he gets curious - and soon finds out they
have spent a night together at some hotel a week ago ... where they
watched a certain videotape. Azakawa watches the videotape, and it scares
the living shit out of him, especially since it seems to predict that
whoever watches it is going to die in a week - just like the teens did ... Fearing
for his own life, Azakawa pays a visit to paranormal investigator Takayama
(Yoshio Harada) for assistance, whom he also gets to watch the tape -
which means now the both of them are doomed to die. Buy Takayama isn't a
paranormal investigator for nothing, he soon finds out that the tape is
somehow linked to the story of Sadako (Ayane Miura), the beautiful
daughter of a clairvoyant, who was used by her father as a medium but also
a sexual partner, and who disappeared 30 years ago under mysterious
circumstances. Azakawa and Takayama manage to track down a doctor
(Tomorowo Taguchi) who is said to have been her lover, and who is actually
seen on the video, too - and when they question him he breaks down,
telling them that he threw Sadako into a well when he found out that she
was a hermaphrodite, and whe still insisted on a sexual relationship. Time's
almost up for Azakawa when he and Takayama find the well, go down and ...
literally in the last minute, Azakawa finds Sadako's skull, and by giving
it a proper burial they think they are safe ... until Takayama dies from a
heart attack, exactly one week after he has seen the video. That gets
Azakawa into a panic, especially since his wife (Mai Tachihara) has
watched the video as well, oblivious to what it is - then he finds out
that the thing he has done and Takayama hasn't, the thing that saved him
was not to properly bury Sadako, but passing the video on to another
person - which is what his wife has to do now ... This very
first of the many adaptations of Koji Suzuki's Ringu was made for
television, and it also remains the closest to the source novel - which is
a bit of a shame, since the novel is actually not all that good. Anyways,
as a film, Ringu: Kanzen-ban is of course nowhere near as powerful
as the book's first big screen adaptation Ringu,
as (just like the novel) it loses itself in a few unnecessary subplots, is
filled with rather flat characters, and its shocks are of a rather mundane
nature. Don't get me wrong, this film is not a trainwreck, nor the worst
adaptation of the novel, it's just a routine horror flick that can't fully
shake its television origins.
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find Ringu: Kanzen-ban at adultvideouniverse.com
