Reiko Asakawa is a single mother and a reporter. She is currently probing into a local urban myth among students that concerns watching a video tape followed by a phone call and eventually death one week later under mysterious circumstances. The myth hits close to home when her niece is killed and so are three of her nieces friends exactly one week after they all had a weekend getaway together. Their autopsies are inconclusive, no drugs, no trauma, their hearts just stopped. In death, their faces froze in panicked expressions.

After she follows the clues of her nieces whereabouts, Reiko discovers the tape, watches it, and worries that she is under the same strange curse. She enlists her ex-husband, Ryuji, to help. The two are pressed for time because not only do they only have a week to uncover the mystery before their deaths but their son has also watched the tape. Where the trail leads them is to a psychic who committed suicide forty years prior, the doctor that experimented on her, and her deadly daughter.

Why Ringu is a success is due to its simplicity. It is a supernatural horror film that doesn't go for the jugular, doesn't leap over the top in terms of gore or exploitative gratuitousness, and keeps things down to simple unsettling mystery and small scares. It is the same formula that made The Sixth Sense a likewise surprise hit and a film that would spawn a supernatural horror resurgence in theaters. After all, what truly frightens most people isn't viscera or the gaudy grotesque, but the unexplainable, the unknown, that sound in a house you cannot pin down or those "I took long to have it looked at" test results from your doctor.

Aside from alterations to some character and other little plot points, the difference between Ringu and the remakes (the US The Ring and the Korean Ring: Virus) actually bring up my biggest, albeit mixed, complaint about the original. Director Hideo Nakato handles the film with an economical minimalist approach, his direction is precise and the story is ambiguous. Ringu isn't told with much directorial flash or revelatory details and its sense of unease is more shudders than shocks. On one hand this is effective because it is so minimal, making gradual unfolding to the end more dreary. On the other, it can also make the film a bit of a bore, a slow-burning investigation with little excitement and unanswered questions left hanging in the air. The remakes kept the same essential minimal supernatural horror tone but favored more explanations and even ratcheting up the imagery and shocks. So, you can argue that aiming for more explanation and detail made the remakes more simplistic and dumbed down, but I can see why the filmmakers thought that would be a good way separate themselves from the original.

If you are a fan of econmical horror and supernatural scares, any version of The Ring should be entertaining. They are all fair enough interpertations of the same chain letter horror tale, and of course Ringu gets special merit for being the first.

For those in the dark: Ringu starts with two schoolgirls having a sleepover with the parents out for the night. The two girls experiment with lesbianism, which starts with an innocent tickle fight and ends with hot graphic steamy sex as they rub massage oil all over each other. Oops, sorry, that was The Ring Does Dallas. Ringu starts with two schoolgirls having a sleepover with the parents out for the night. Just when you think that they might start a tickle fight that leads to rubbing oil all over each other, that's exactly what doesn't happen! What does happen is one girl relates to the other the fact that she has seen a strange video tape with her other friends and that at the end of the tape someone phones and says that they will all die in one week. Guess how long ago that was? Yup. Exactly one week ago. And guess what the cue that your about to die is? The phone rings. And guess what happens just as the girls are laughing about what a silly story the one has told the other? Yup. The phone rings.

If you're a gore hound and a fan of Asian films, then you already know about Ringu. So you can just go do something else for a while. To other persons: this is really not a gory film at all. This is more of a psychological horror story, that has the ring (excuse the double pun) of an urban legend. In fact the whole premise is based on the urban legend (or is it?!) in the film. Whereas I would say the same thing about The Blair Witch Project, the difference is that, besides Ringu being a well made film, Blair Witch smacked of the kind of story that takes ten minutes to tell around a campfire. What I felt would have made a creepy little 15 minute film, they stretched into a feature length trudge through the woods. Ringu, on the other hand, works because it builds characters and a story into the urban legend idea.

Some people find Ringu extremely scary. I didn't. The great thing was that it was creepy enough, and the mood unsettling enough, and the story so well crafted that it became one of my favorites right away. If you are tough as nails, and can stomach buckets of blood and gore, well, good for you. But you won't need that constitution here. There is a subtle, undeniable charm (see the review for Chaos) about Ringu that I can't quite identify, but has obviously had an effect on the entire Asian movie industry and its movie going public.

Ringu was remade as an American film, The Ring. I actually liked the American version a lot more than I thought I would, but Ringu's the real deal. Worthy purchase.

DO NOT BUY THIS FILM IF: You can't stand Japanese school girls having tickle fights - I mean, innocent sleepovers; you can't stand Japanese school girls at all; you don't see the point in horror without the gore; you are about to go through and sort out your large collection of old, creepy looking, unlabelled video tapes in you attic.

RECOMMENDATION: This is a classic of the genre that has inspired a whole new style of monster: the long black-haired Asian girl with a hidden face and an eye that bulges out at you menacingly. Not since Godzilla has such a destructive force been unleashed on society. I seriously recommend this film to all film buffs and horror fans.

COMMENTS
I've seen a few Japanese horror films in the past, but this one has a catagory all on its own. Talk about an original plot. The film is very innovative and has some weird, creepy scenes in it. The begining reminded me of a teen slasher, only without the slashing.

Starts off with these two teen girls talking about the legend of a cursed tape. The legend goes like this... they say when you view the tape a woman appears saying that you will die. After viewing the tape you get a phone call, with someone on the other end saying the same thing. A week later, you die. Pretty interesting stuff.

The whole deal with passing the tape along to another is a very cool idea. I mean, who ever heard of a haunted video tape? When I first read about it in Fangoria I knew that I had to see this film. I'm glad I did. One thing kind of dissapointed me was the fact that it wasn't as "creepy" as many people set it out to be. I thought it was gonna be really creepy, but it only had a few somewhat creepy scenes in it. That's not all too bad because the ending was worth it.

In the film a reporter views the tape then tries to uncover the truth behind it. She gets her ex-husband to join in and he views the tape as well. That gives them about a week to find out where the tape came from and what's it about. The whole story behind the tape gets you hooked. The film basically gets you hooked from the start.

At one point we get to see what is actually on the tape. Talk about some weirdass shit. This film did so well that there's gonna be an american version of it. I dunno when it's coming out though. I'm guessing 2002 or 2003. I'd like to see how different it'll be. If anyone plans to see the american version, I recommend you check this version out first. I know I'll be comparing the films.

There are two other sequels of this film, but I hear they suck. I have a copy of the second film, so I'll be reviewing that one later on.

OVERALL
Very cool japanese horror flick. Has some weird, creepy moments and really makes ya think. Original story and excellent ending. I recommend this film to all you horror fans out there that are tired of the same old american slashers.