Ringu (1998)

A reporter and her ex-husband investigate a cursed video tape that is rumored to kill the viewer seven days after watching it.

Director:

Hideo Nakata

Writers:

Hiroshi Takahashi (screenplay), Kôji Suzuki (novel)

Stars:

Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Yûko Takeuchi

6 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Nanako Matsushima	...	Reiko Asakawa
Miki Nakatani	...	Mai Takano
Yûko Takeuchi	...	Tomoko Ôishi
Hitomi Satô	...	Masami
Yôichi Numata	...	Takashi Yamamura
Yutaka Matsushige	...	Yoshino
Katsumi Muramatsu	...	Kôichi Asakawa
Rikiya Ôtaka	...	Yôichi Asakawa
Masako	...	Shizuko Yamamura
Daisuke Ban	...	Heihachirô Ikuma
Hiroshi Sakuma	...	Komiya Kameraman (as Kanehiro Ri)
Yûrei Yanagi	...	AD Okazaki
Yôko Ohshima	...	Reiko no Oba
Kiriko Shimizu	...	Yoshimi Ôishi
Makoto Kakeda	...	Kanrinin

Storyline

Reiko Asakawa is researching into a 'Cursed Video' interviewing teenagers about it. When her niece Tomoko dies of 'sudden heart failure' with an unnaturally horrified expression on her face, Reiko investigates. She finds out that some of Tomoko's friends, who had been on a holiday with Tomoko the week before, had died on exactly the same night at the exact same time in the exact same way. Reiko goes to the cabin where the teens had stayed and finds an 'unlabeled' video tape. Reiko watched the tape to discover to her horror it is in fact the 'cursed videotape'. Ex-Husband Ryuji helps Reiko solve the mystery, Reiko makes him a copy for further investigation. Things become more tense when their son Yoichi watches the tape saying Tomoko had told him to. Their discovery takes them to a volcanic island where they discover that the video has a connection to a psychic who died 30 years ago, and her child Sadako...

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Plot Keywords:

videotape | television as portal | vhs tape | ghost girl | well | 

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Taglines:

Will scare the hell out of you!

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

31 January 1998 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Ring

Box Office

Budget:

$1,200,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

£8,690,429

Company Credits

Production Co:

Basara Pictures, Imagica, Asmik Ace Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The characters of Sadako and Shizuko are named after and loosely based on two real women. Both were taken under the wing of Professor Fukurai Tomokichi and, whilst not actually mother and daughter, Takahashi Sadako did work with the professor soon after Chizuko's suicide. Neither woman possessed the gift of nensha, but another student of the professor, Nagao Ikuko, was believed to have this power.

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Goofs

One the pictures received from the photo shop shows a date, August 29, 1997. Later on the story tells "September 13, Monday". September 13, 1997 was Saturday.

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Quotes

Ryuji Takayama: Is Yoichi okay alone at this hour?
Reiko Asakawa: [sadly] He's used to it.

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Connections

Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Supernatural Serial Killers in Movies (2017)

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Soundtracks

Feels Like 'Heaven'
Performed by HIIH

User Reviews

Unsettling

Everyone knows the story by now: there's a videotape which, when played, reveals a discordant string of disturbing images including a circle of sky seen from below and a man looking down from above, the word "Eruption" written over and over again and moving of its own accord across the page, a hooded figure pointing at some unseen accused, a woman brushing her hair before a mirror and, last but not least, a well standing alone on a neglected patch of land. The video ends and the phone rings...but there is only an eerie silence on the other end. In seven days, the viewer of the video is dead, their heart having suddenly come to a stop for no apparent reason. One such victim is a seventeen year old girl, and it is up to her aunt, hotshot newspaper reporter Reiko, to solve the mystery of the strange video.

Like the American remake "The Ring," Ringu is not a perfect film. It leaves more than a couple of unanswered questions and may move too slowly in some parts to hold the attention of horror film fans who are used to a bloody slaughter scene every seven minutes. But for fans of good, spooky, old fashioned ghost stories, "Ringu" has a lot to recommend it.

One of the things I appreciated the most about this movie is the complete and utter lack of gore. There's not a drop of blood to be found in this film, which makes the sight of so many dead bodies, their faces frozen in hideous screams of horror, all the more effective. The character of Sadako also has more of an impact than the child from the remake. Sadako never speaks, her face is never seen (but for one hideous, floating eye) and her presence is solid, unlike her static-y American sister. Sadako's emergence from the TV screen in the films final moments is worth waiting through the rest of the movie to see; it is a truly creepy moment which looks to have been filmed backwards as Sadako creeps with jerky, inhuman movements across the floor and up, swiveling to face her victim. That scene haunted me (no pun intended) for two full nights of broken sleep...mostly because Sadako seemed so terribly human, as sad as she was frightening. You pity her before you see her merciless side, and this throws the balance way out of whack.

Unsettling, to say the least.

This is a film about dread, about knowing that something dark and terrible is waiting for you and not knowing how to stop it. You can only wait and hope for the best...but the wait itself is the real horror, and the unseen unknown is the most frightening monster of all.