Film Details:
Directed by Hideo Nakata (Ringu2, Honogurai mizu nosoko kara)
Written by
Koji Suzuki (Orginal Novels)
Hiroshi Takahashi (Ringu2, Hakkyousuru kuchibiru)
Starring
Nanako Matsushima (Ringu2 , the Great Teacher Onizuka anime series)
Hiroyuki Sanada (Ringu2, Rasen, Mayonaka made)
Rei Inou (Ringu2)
Dreamworks Home Entertainment
Review: by Don (e-mail your faithful reviewer)
Fear. It's a white hot ball in your stomach and in your head. The flesh around your skull tightens and you begin to wonder who or what may be watching, creeping, standing in the darkness. Your breath comes in hitches and the sound of every gasp of air worries you. Who heard it? What heard it? If I stay very still, the thing in the dark won't get me.
Fear. It haunts us into adulthood. Though we tell ourselves we are not afraid of the dark, there are times when we know it's a lie. Times when the scraping, clicking, popping, shifting sounds of the night terrify us beyond anything we can remember. Deep, scarring, irrational fear. The thing under the bed. The horror in the closet. The very chance that a face may be peering in at us from outside our bedroom window in the dark.
Now comes the sweat. Cold droplets on your brow and under your arms. There is a sensation around your head that is almost painful and you don't know how much longer you can take it. While frustration rises, so does courage. You are an adult. You are not afraid of such things. You sit up, look around the room, and assure yourself nothing is there. And there isn't. But the moment you lay back down, close your eyes, can you really be sure? There are so many ways someone or something could get you where you lie. So many ways.
Scary movies. They bring us controlled doses of fear. But for many years we have not been scared. Not those of us who truly love the films. They have become foolish. Ridiculous. Self-aware. The Scream films were amusing at first, but never truly scary. They also got tired quickly. The ones from our youth that were frightening have lost their glamour. No longer do we quiver at Carol Anne's plight. The Demon inside Regan MacNeil strapped to the bed does not fill us with the horror it once did. The crazed grin on Jack Torrance's face as he gleefully tries to hack his family to pieces does not disturb us as once it did. We have gone through the closet. We have let the power of Christ compel us. We have back tracked through the hedge maze. We have done these things once and many times, and we no longer fear them.
Then comes the image of the well.
Ringu, the original Japanese film that inspired The Ring, pays off in spades on the horror front. In content both films are very similar. The American version is slicker and cleaner with better FX, but the Japanese version carries the horror further. The sound mix on this DVD is unbelievable. If you have a surround sound system, then this is the sort of movie that it was made for. Musical cues and stings abound on this disc. Many sudden noises fly out at you at the absolute perfect moments. I just can't give it enough praise.
The plot of the film is almost identical to the plot of the remake. Killer videotape and seven days to live and all that good stuff. If you've read the Ring review or have seen the remake yourself, then you know the story. Differences abound between the two, though.
In the original, the lead character is also female (in the original novel it was a man) and there is the whole story of the estranged husband as well. A big difference one sees right away is that Reiko is indeed a reporter, but she is already working on the story of the videotape when her niece dies. While other differences are there (including the whole storyline about the horses, which exists in the American version but not in the Japanese film), at the core they are more or less the same film. Different methods of storytelling and the quality of the special effects are the largest differences. There is something about the Japanese version that makes it just way creepier though. When she crawls out of the TV... it makes you kinda wish director Hideo Nakata hadn't watched Videodrome so many times.
If you saw the American Ring you know all about the story. It comes off a little strange sometimes. And once or twice it's slightly hokey. The Japanese version has its hokey moments as well, though some of them have to do with the cultural differences between the U.S. and Japanese people. If you haven't seen it yet, buy it or rent it. Do what you gotta do. Just see this thing. I'll be reading the book when it Hits American shores on May 1st.
A possible rundown of the differences of the three versions may be forthcoming.
DVD Details:
Good picture transfer, but the thing that stands out the most on this disc is, as I stated before, the sound. It's amazing. It's just incredible. Half of the creepiness of this film is the sound. Truly spectacular in DTS. The English Dub is not in surround, and only so-so in translation quality. I highly recommend watching the thing in Japanese.
No extras to speak of, aside from trailers for a couple of other films.
Further Information:
Internet Movie Database
