Ringu (1998) by Hideo Nakata

Director: Hideo Nakata
Year: 1998
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Ghosts

Plot:
After watching a mysterious videotape, a woman finds herself cursed to die within a week afterward searches the various clues within the video to find the truth about the tape's origins and connection to a legend about a vicious woman before her time runs out and the curse consumes her.

Review:

While this one had some really good stuff, overall the flaws here take centerstage. The main aspect hurts this one is the fact that the main storyline is incredibly flawed and makes little sense. As the ghost wants her body found out, the purpose of making a videotape that originates in a backcountry community that plays only on a locally-broadcasted channel that's supposed to generate interest in solving her mysterious disappearance, an event that's counterintuitive to what she really wants. Rather than bring about a sense of discovery into her situation and eventually crossover into the afterlife, placing the means of your discovery should come about rather easily rather than going for a more crowd-friendly atmosphere instead of an isolated and partially obscure part of the country is far more ideal and thus setting up the rampage to follow. Likewise, purposefully killing those who are potentially there to help makes the whole point moot as that shrinks the number of those able to potentially help the cause, really leaving the plot quite troublesome.

Beyond that, the fact that the film is just so slowly-paced and lacking of ghost action that the middle segment completely eliminates the killing to focus on the investigation into the video tape's images and source. This is spent more on looking for photographs of the missing couple, visiting the different locations of the classmates such as their school or the cabin in particular where they contracted the curse or sitting around attempting to understand the concept of the curse with her boyfriend as she is getting him to believe in the curse and trying to decipher it all, and none of those are crawling with horrific ideas or concepts. These are practically non-events that while building up the mythos around the legend all tend to prevent this one from really getting going leaving this to drag on to the final twenty minutes.

Granted, that's great stuff that happens here, but it comes too little too late to save the rest of the film though it somewhat evens it out to make it borderline watchable. The film's at it's best when detailing the creepy and oftentimes downright chilling atmosphere of the tape, offering up plenty of suspense as they slowly work out the cause and details of the tape. Knowing how the visuals were created and how they came to be affixed onto the tape itself offers this one it's best sense of energy and atmosphere as one-by-one all the pieces slowly work themselves together to realize how their journey ties together. From the distorted photographs leading into the idea of the island and the research they conduct their as well as the revelations about the child in the past which starts to play a prominent role in how this one ends up. From the encounter in the well with the body to the stellar and absolutely chilling sequence with the ghost making one last appearance inside their house for a truly shocking and memorable scare.

The cast here isn't bad and offers up some positive aspects to this one. Nanako Matsushima is really appealing as reporter Reiko Asakawa, who's under the clock of the curse. She has a sweetness and vulnerability to her that differs significantly from most other reporters which makes us care more about her and plight especially once her son is involved in the transgressions. It's a quiet, understated role and she pulls it offer really nicely to keep us on her side. Rikiya Ôtaka as her son Yôichi is a bland and inoffensive presence that works only on the sense of offering a child into the proceedings of the curse but otherwise doesn't offend or detract from the film. Hiroyuki Sanada as her ex-husband Ryuji Takayama who helps her in the journey offers a slightly frenzied but no less noteworthy performance here. His initial skepticism in helping her based on the past makes for a slightly more sarcastic lead than expected even though he eventually comes around to being a friendly voice on her side. He makes for a nice presence and doesn't detract much, quite like the others which they encounter leaving this one solid in this regard and giving this a lot to like overall.

Overview: ****/5
One of the finer and more enjoyable efforts in the style, this is among the better examples of J-horror out in the genre. This is easily recommended to those not just interested in Asian horror but also if you're looking to expand into the scene as a whole, while those put off by the remake should be the only ones heeding caution with the original.