Friday Night Movie Pairing: Ringu/The Ring

For today’s movie review I wanted to switch things up by focusing on a movie that was originally released in Japan and had a remake in the US. Whenever I look at reviews for Asian horror movies, this movie tends to be one of the standouts in how many people prefer the remake over the original, and I hadn’t watched both in years so I wanted to compare the two now with the focus on how they independently were, what did or didn’t work, and which one I think is better.

Native Title: リング / The Ring
Release Date: January 31, 1998 / October 18, 2002
Director: Hideo Nakata / Gore Verbinski
Screenplay by: Hiroshi Takahashi / Ehren Kruger
Genre: Supernatural, Horror
Starring: Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada (rest here) / Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson (rest here)
Platform: Shudder / Amazon Prime (with ads)

I want to go into this review stating that I do have a bias - Japanese entertainment is my preferred and have been exposed to it for a while. Things I think the average viewer would not like if they rarely watch any Japanese content or are not used to, I already am familiar with. That being said, I did watch the American version first when I originally watched them (a very long time ago). For this rewatch, I started with the Japanese.

While there are some differences in the plot, the basic premise for both is a cursed tape that kills the viewer one week after watching the video. The ring is from the phone call the victim receives right after watching, and the phone cal they receive before death. The story follows journalist trying to uncover a mysterious death in her family when she finds the tape and watches it. She uses her week to dive deeper into the creator of the tape and where it came from to be able to lift the curse. Between the two, the backstory of the creator of the story is a bit different, but in general it’s the same plot just written for two different cultures. I’m going to try to do a short non-spoiler review of both, and then we’ll go deeper into the spoiler section.

It had been long enough since watching both of the movies that I had forgotten pretty much the entirety of the story, so it was interesting to watch it again and much more interesting to do it watching both versions so close together. Ringu is in the category of horror movies I like, slow burn with a paranormal twist. A lot of the unknown is where anxiety and fear lives, and I appreciate that. While the American version plays up things a good bit more and tends to add conflict for filler, it generally has the same atmospheric tone to it. I like that you don’t ever really see what the bodies look like (at least clearly) and I think that unknown leaves a lot to the mystery. The movies also have an aspect I like in crime stories, where the characters have to follow the clues to figure out the story, and this one spends a lot of time on it. I think they are both solid options that are creepy, very little to no gore, and would be a good all around movie. I can see where the Japanese version can get draggy and be a turn off for most because it’s a slower burn. I found that a lot of the conflict that The Ring had was unnecessary and didn’t even add to distract the viewer in what was going on, and ultimately led to the movie being longer than it should have. Both have the same issue that some of the points don’t hold up now with advancement in technology, and can take you out of the movie when there are times when they specifically looking at the tape, but overall I don’t think it necessarily hinders the creepiness of it. At the end between the two movies, Ringu won for me. I still think they are both solid options, and since they are both accessible they are definitely worth a watch. Shudder also has some of the sequels if you are curious in the franchise and want to go deeper.

Now, onto the spoiler parts where I talk a bit more on some of the things that I liked, and what I didn’t.

As I stated before, the two movies still work really well each other. Not a lot of it was changed, and some of the changes I think were expected. I didn’t mind that the contents of the tape was changed for The Ring, however, I do think they did it a bit disservice by making the film seem a little bit more edited and put together than the home movie that it is in Ringu. Because of this, a lot of the editing was able to be seen clearer, and the movie felt unreal, as if it had been done by a paid editor for the opening credits of a cable tv show. It took some of the creepiness out of it on a whole, especially since The Ring spent a lot more time with it up close.

I want to talk about some of the unnecessary filler that was added to the American remake, because a lot of it I really didn’t like and I think added to the dragginess of the movie. It was way too long for what it was, and I think there were clear parts that could have been cut to add this that did nothing to further the story. While Ringu is draggy in that it was intentional for the atmosphere of the movie, The Ring had some red herrings that were only there for a minute. In both movies, the niece has been killed and the son has some sort of fondness to her. While Ringu briefly touches on drugs as a possible death, it is quickly ruled out and moved on. The Ring, not so much. They really wanted to drive home that these kids were bad or troublemakers. At first I thought this was going to be a part of the plot, and distract us from it being a supernatural thing…except it wasn’t? I don’t understand why you even had the owner of the cabin they were last in remarking on them being troublemakers when it did nothing for the story. She didn’t go a different path because her niece might have a been trouble maker making us believe that maybe the deaths are not from a paranormal source. She didn’t spend any extra time on researching it to clear her name. I just didn’t understand why it was all necessary.

I also didn’t like how long it took for the ex-boyfriend to come around to the story. Again, unnecessary drama that didn’t hinder her investigation or add anything past the added minutes on the length of the film. Literally. They had one scene where she yelled at him, but that was that. She was already doing all the research anyways. I really appreciated the fact that the ex-husband in Ringu just accepted it. I understand that it is a bit different for his character as he had some sort of ability to the other side and he already had accepted that world, I just found that The Ring just having that conflict really didn’t fit. And again, these are things that could have been cut out of the movie and not really effect it in any sort of way. Cut out the domestic drama and give me more paranormal and creepy.

What I did like as a change, was the representation of the moms. I figured it was going to be different purely because it would be more ok in Japan to have the kid home alone as opposed to here, but I felt the remake had a good difference in the story. Another positive point over the original is that a lot of the work done in trying to figure out the origin was done by Rachel alone. We get to see her a lot more, and I liked that the true lead in the film was the female. I think this also worked in favor of the sort of undertone of the whole movie in regards to the son, and how the mother might be perceived by the outside world as not caring (being a single working mother), but in fact is doing this all ultimately for the son.

I also liked the story line is the backstory of the film. This was necessary, as a lot of what is the basis for the person and the story in the Japanese version is tied to their culture, but I found the American version to be creepier and darker. There was a lot more with mother which I think helped aid in the underlying narrative both movies had about mothers and children. In Ringu they eventually find the spirit’s body to try to appease them, but in The Ring there is a sense of Rachel’s character wanting to do more than just that. She feels sorry for what the child had to go through. She is the mother who is actually doing right (when before we’ve established that she is seen as not as good with the imbalance in the home), as opposed to the mother who killed their child and threw her in the well. Because the Japanese version has the father doing this, we don’t get a strong sense of that narrative like we do with the remake.

This review/comparison/whatever is getting a lot longer than intended, so I’m not going to go too much into this next part. It doesn’t really go with anything else that I’ve talked about (besides adding unnecessary length), but I have to do mention that I actually legitimately hate the horse scene with all my heart and soul. As soon as that part came on, I instantly remembered how much I hated it. Despite it being an animal death, it was completely and utterly useless for the story, to the extreme that it’s almost comical. It did absolutely nothing, and clearly it was someone going “Yep, this needs more gore and shock to be good. Make that happen!”. And the fact that she not once, not twice, but FOUR times tried to get the agitated horse to let her pet her made me not care what happened to her then onward. We already had creepy, we didn’t need this.

To sum up everything and try to wrap this up, I do understand why there are people who would choose the remake over the original. I think a lot of that lies in how well they were able to reinterpet the scenes and situations that were tied to the Japanese culture, and move it into the story for the American audience. Ringu is slow, and doesn’t rely a lot on things, as per the standard in these types of movies coming out of Japan (or Asian in general), but if that is something you really like (and by you, I mean me. I’m the one who likes that), it’s understandable why you would pick it over the remake. I said before that I prefer Ringu over The Ring, but honestly if they had cut out all that unnecessary stuff that I felt bogged down the movie, the outcome probably would have me leaning towards the remake.

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