Like "Ringu", they use children to heighten the fright factor--there's something very Brothers Grimm about abducting kids for sinister purposes. Also the characters are good. Too many domestic horror movies stick with the easy out in making the characters fairly despicable so there isn't much trauma when bad things happen to them, but in this film even the bad girl is very sympathetic. Plus it has Aya Sugimoto in a small but definitely noticeable role and that always helps.

I do have a tendency to enjoy even the most generic of Japanese horror movies, but this one really made me enjoy it, so it's definitely worth the watch even if it doesn't redefine what you think of ghost stories.