The Ring

I enjoyed both Tetsuos, but 'Audition' is the best Japanese movie I've seen in a v. long time - really creepy/clever. I also saw Shinji Aoyama's 'Eureka' this year. It isn't that scary, but it does last a bum-numbing 4 hrs (we had an intermission - haven't had one of those since 'Titanic', and this was MUCH longer!) 'Eureka' IS emptily flashy and overlong - and the director has obv. overdosed on 'Kings Of The Road' - but there are some breathtaking moments in it, esp. the brilliant opening 20 minutes or so. 'Eureka' got a really pissy review in Sight and Sound from T*ny R*yns, as if he were the only person allowed to ever discover 'new' Japanese cinema. (TR used to be a customer at M+V was perfectly pleasant and no trouble at all, so I was sorta surprised by the bile of this review...)

I haf a cracking gossip-nugget abt R*yns which i literally dursn't post: remind me at next RL meet-up to spill. It's funny, not mean or illegal, but i am chicken

DG will be most unhappy with yr endrsement of the crypto-fascist imposition of age- suitability on films...

the ring=classic, i'll never answer the phone again!

The Ring is also harmed awfully by Ring 2 - which is not only bobbins and realy not scary it also does a bit of a Highlander 2 on the plot of the Ring.

I hear there is a truly awful prequel Ring O out there too (and anyone who remembers the advert, no Ring goes like a Ringo goes).

I thought Ring 2 was better, because by unlocking the mysteries of the prequel it added to the sense of horror.

I totally second what Andrew said about The Audition - absolutely fantastic, one of the most powerful thrillers ever made. It gave me the fear when I saw it on Saturday night, and the apocalyptic ending is one that I'm not likely to forget in a hurry.

Ring 2 in demystifying ties the phenomena up with such pointless mumbo-jumbo that it is no longer scary. Mystery = fear. Much of the middle of the movie does that as well.

However overall problem with Ring plot still remains, why not tell people they have to show the video to someone within a week. Bish Bash Bosh, you are sorted. No wonky eyeball bird coming out of your TV.

It's all well and good to pass on the curse to a friend or loved one, but sooner or later you're going to run out of people. Surely the most responsible thing to do is attempt to break the curse rather than lend it to a mate.

And yes, The Audition IS nasty and gratuitious, that's precisely why I liked it. It reminded me of an ex girlfriend.

And we aren't talking a pyramid scheme here anyway. You can end the curse completely by showing the video to someone who is about to die anyway - and then destroy the tape. Equally when you copy it, there is nothing in the plot that says the original cannot be destroyed.

I'd certainly have reservations about saying to a friend of mine "Oh by the way mate, that video we watched last night, you have to show it to somebody else within the next week or you'll die horribly". I think our relationship may suffer as a consequence.

Film Two could have been a visualisation of this post pub scenario (ie advertising the fact that the video exists and is dangerous, panic of those who have seen it, government searching for cure whilst carrying out dubiously ethical programme of watching the video (potential of video as weapon of mass destruction). Instead its all hoo-hah.

Also (sorry - pedantry runs rife) what if there isn't a phone near the video?

Pete, you should be one of those sequel continuity officer dudes - you'd make a mint.

I thought Ring 2 was scarier and even more incomprehensible, by the way!

Question, are sequels better when they merely carry across the theme of the original and not necessarily the characters. FOr instance, Predator 2 is much more interesting because it hasn't got Arnie in it. Aliens takes the idea of the Alien and uses it in a war film setting. Curse Of The Cat People takes the idea of the cursed character and turns it into a fable/metaphor for a childs imaginary friend.

Rosenbaum in the Reader complained that it was just a bunch of jolts with no coherence but the unexplained malevolence aspect was what made it so effective.

P.S. Naomi Watts is so lovely, esp. when her two top front teeth hang enticingly over her lower lip ....

You've got characters who exist only so Watts can explain important plot points, characters who exist only to spell out, loudly and in detail the ripped-from-the-headlines elements, etc. Very stupid film, or made by people who think the audience is very stupid.

Bonus: Some of the worst CGI and rear-projection I've seen in a mainstream Hollywood production. The elk attack was painful to watch.

(I mistyped that as ELF attack initially and was imagining Will Farrell on the rampage.)

i had to wash my mouth out with "Millions" just to be able to face myself in the mirror.

As I didn't read it in the original Japanese, it may've lost something in translation.

For the record I thought Ring 2 was good as well. Ring 0 sucked.

Has anyone seen the Chinese rip-off? Apparently it's meant to be pretty good.

Is this the Korean Ring The Ring Virus? If anything it's actually closer to the book plot than the first film, but the acting is dreadful and it's a pretty shoddy film - the director Dong-bin Kim said he wanted to take the horror out and put the mystery back in. It won't surprise you that he fails, but there are at least two good scenes in it.

The film people are missing, and I know it's hard to get, is Rasen: Ring Spiral - the original Ring 2. It came out before Ring 2, and wasn't made by Nakata Hideo, but uses a couple of actors we've seen before. It tries to make the 'proper' Ring series much more like the book and doesn't do badly - it certainly makes more sense than the 'proper' Ring 2, it's just not very well made.

Somebody stop me before I start on Ring: Kanzenban, Ring: Saishuushou/The Final Chapter or Rasen: The Series. Please.

this is hokey as fuck but I love it

http://twitchfilm.com/news/2012/04/the-ring-villain-sadako-throws-out-first-pitch-at-japanese-baseball-game.php

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m31tnsnqOM1qb5tj7o4_250.gif

Poor Sadako, falling down like that! Thankfully the mohawk mouse was there to help her.

just scared the shit out of meself

was watching match of the day, this came on after. didn't fancy it- im last up and im jittery enough with horrors.

remote, press. nothing.

huh

remote, press. nothing.

ah here.

remote, mash. light flashing ok. nothing.

video in the movie is starting.

moment of absolute terror. the signal is coming from inside the tv, etc.

literal thought: i dont want to die, i made enough dinner tonight to cover tomorrow too.

wait a minute......it's monday.

i was watching match of the day on record. with UPC recordings you've to press a specific button to exit. found it. worked. breathe.

if i didn't hate that functionality already i sure will by the time these jeans are dry.

upc is scarier than the ring.

if u watch upc yr upc box dies within a week

when i worked for virgin, it got taken over by the company that owns upc. they sent a few of the irish upc people to london. they were all the worst people i've ever met in my life.

we had an away day, them having fired half my team and moved me to a new department (coincidentally sat beside a girl i'd been meant to go on a date with over that christmas, which never happened) - at this away day they covered the entire floor in photos and you had to pick three, one for "where you are", one for "where you're going" and "one for where you're at".

i can't remember all three of mine but i know one was a killer whale and i picked it and said "i am dying slowly from the polluted seas around me". got offered redundancy about two months later.

that's much better than watching a video and getting offered death a week later tbf

yeah the similarities are there but overall an offer of death is fairly stingy

It's all they have to give you under the Tories tbftttg

I sneaked a tiny snippet of a gif of the Ring video into a Keynote presentation I gave at work the other day.

Okay I admit this is pretty brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcuRPzB4RNc

god this movie slaps

ringu also slaps. spiral and ringu 2 are less successful but ringu 2 has like five or six unbelievably awesome ideas in it anyway

oh i guess i bumped a thread that was initially about ringu. hilarious

Shit, I haven’t seen this in so long. Need to rectify that.

Pluto TV to the rescue

It’s probably just me being over sensitive but I’ve always thought that rendering the Japanese title as “Ringu” feels a little “hur hur they can’t even say ring”. Sure it’s the literal romaji of リング, but that’s how you write “ring” in katakana, and it would be pronounced “ring” by a Japanese person.

IME it was always referred to as "The Ring" until the inferior US remake came out, I understand the need to distinguish, but it seems like a unnecessary compromise when we could just agree to call the original "The Ring" and just agree to never speak about the remake again.

the remake is good!

if the original didn't exist, it would maybe be good

No, the original was released in English markets as “Ring”, the The only applies to the remake

'Ringu' is easier to say than 'Ring...no, the Japanese original, it's much better you know and doesn't mess up the key scene with a FUCKING CAR CHASE'.

Very easy to distinguish between them, one has The and therefore sucks (I haven’t seen it but the The is bad)

the remake is an incredibly good movie. since it’s a literal pronunciation of the katakana, i got few beefs with referring to the original as ringu

also there isn’t a car chase in the remake?

one of the best remakes ever made tbh, some of the things it does i prefer to the original (which i will hereby refer to as “the original”)

in the remake I was annoyed by

* too much work being done to humanize the characters, explain motivation, etc.
* less muddy photography
* the most important shot of all when she comes out of the TV looked much more conventional horror therefore less scary
* there being an actual picture of a ring in the video

wow i disagree with all of that, the character work seems aligned with the original for the most part except for expanding the precociousness of the kid. the photography in the original ring is also really clean? gore verbinski admittedly makes it cleaner but that's part of why it's so gorgeous. the shots of the trees while she's staying in the cabin are my favorite

there being an actual picture of a ring in the video

the ring is the well, it's in the original too, though the image looks different

my only real issue with the remake is they put too much stuff in the video

it is also amazing how the the faces of the ppl killed by the tape in the remake look even more terrifying than in the og

some combo of drowned, strangled, and decayed

it may be that I had a poor VHS copy of the original, if so that was a blessing.

the characterisation I didn't like was expanding on the journalist / mother's life as a stressed professional single mum, it wasn't so much that it was a change from the original, it was just that it felt like they were trying to humanize her / build identification with her, which for me works against the mood of the film.

but yeah, making the kid a generic creepy kid would also go on my list.

It sounds like what you liked about the original is that it was... inscrutable

the characterisation I didn't like was expanding on the journalist / mother's life as a stressed professional single mum, it wasn't so much that it was a change from the original, it was just that it felt like they were trying to humanize her / build identification with her, which for me works against the mood of the film.

there's literally not much more material on this in the remake than there is in the original, they even have the same line of dialogue about it (can't remember exactly what it is but it's something like "he's used to me being away")