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 et me preface my review by saying that I saw the sequel to
"Ring", "Ring 2",
before I saw the original. Of course this means a lot of things were lost to me
(while watching the sequel),
one of which was the unanswered question of why people considered this series
"scary" or even "horror" movies. There's very
little about both movies that are scary, which leaves me to wonder why Japanese
audiences flock to this series in droves, claiming it to be the scariest
franchise ever. Are Japanese people this easy to "scare"?
"Ring" opens with two young girls trading stories
about a cursed video and how the viewer dies 1 week later, which leads to one of
the girls, Tomoko, revealing that she and 3 of her friends had seen a similar
video exactly one week ago tonight. It isn't long before Tomoko dies under
mysterious circumstances and her autopsy shows she died because her heart simply
stopped beating. The other girl, Masami, ends up in the hospital as a raving
lunatic who refuses to go near any place with a TV.
Enter Tomoko's aunt, Reiko
(Nanako Matsushima), a reporter who learns about her niece's death at the same
time she's doing a story about a "cursed video" that kids are talking
about. It turns out not only is Tomoko dead, but the 3 friends who had seen the
video along with her have also died under similarly mysterious circumstances. Is
it coincidence or is there really a cursed video on the loose? Reiko sets out to
investigate and stumbles onto the video in question,
and becomes cursed herself. Desperate to avoid her own death in 7 days, Reiko
recruits the help of her ex-husband, Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada), a college
professor with special psychic abilities. Can Ryuji help Reiko uncover the
history of the curse before it's too late?
It should be noted that "Ring" was apparently shot
back to back with its sequel, "Ring 2", and that both movies were released in 1998. If anyone plans on
watching the series, they really should watch it in order, since having watched
it out of order, I can safely say it's not a good idea. Of course I was
able to extract as much as I could from the exposition and background story in
the sequel, but still, because both films were shot back to back and released in
the same year, I believe they were meant to be one long film.
Taken on its own merits, "Ring" proves to be the
superior film in the series (there is a third, a prequel, coming out soon). The atmosphere and pacing of the two
movies are so vastly different that it's hard to imagine the same director was
responsible for both. Then again, the original had two names credited as
director, Hideo Nakata and Chisui Takigawa, while the sequel has only Nakata
listed. Which leads me to wonder if Takigawa was the real inspiration behind
"Ring's"
dark and gritty look and brisk pacing, whereas Nakata favors the laborious long
takes and bright, vanilla boredom that permeates the sequel. Which also leads me to
ask, why didn't Takigawa direct the sequel, too?
"Ring" is so dark that sometimes it's hard to see the
faces of the characters; and the shadows and dark patches that fills the movie gives it an
eerie and somber vibe. It also helps that "Ring" moves at a brisk pace, with the
curse established early on, and Reiko's desperate race against time carrying the rest of the
film. Another plus is lead actress Nanako
Matsushima, who displays more acting chops than Miki Nakatani (the star of the
sequel) could ever
hope to possess. Matsushima is expressive and convincing as the reporter who
finds herself and her family suddenly threatened by supernatural forces. Her
desperate attempts to uncover the video's history grows with greater urgency as
the movie counts down the days to her last week alive using title cards.
Which brings me to one of the movie's plot holes. I can
readily accept that the video is cursed (and the reasons for which is revealed
in the sequel) but I find the length of the curse, a week, to be somewhat
arbitrary. Why a week? Why not a day? Or two days? Or a year for that matter?
The films never bothers to tackle this question. I suppose the
time limit was used to establish paranoia and desperation, as Reiko and her
ex-husband began to lose hope, regain hope, and lose hope again as the days to
her inevitable demise tick by.
For a horror movie, "Ring" is lacking in
scares. The movie does a good job of portraying the confusion of the video, but there
is a curious lack of anything
remotely approaching "horror." Even the deaths of various characters
come across as weak. This isn't to say I can't
understand psychological horror.
It's just that from all I've heard about this movie and its popularity in and
outside of Japan, I expected something a lot more. As it stands, the ending sequence, when the ghost finally
appears, left me giggling. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the reaction they were
going for.
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