Spiral

I watched this movie and i thought this movie was ok. But how ok ? I liked atmosphere, dialog and etc, but i did not like like as sequel. This is ghost story, is must be scary but it didn't.

I will say that I am certainly a fan of all the Ring films. Even at their most obscure, they give the horror genre a shot in the arm that is has needed for a LONG time. Also, the general concept behind these films (a post-Rosemary's Baby/Omen horror story) is pretty darned brilliant.

But, this. Wow. I'm just so torn. On the one hand, Rasen has some very good scenes that are missing from the other Ring films. Most notably, it doesn't shy away from human emotion. The fascinating juxtaposition of the suicidal Dr. Ando and a videotape which can kill its viewers almost passively makes for a very interesting story. Throw into the mix the sexual element (i.e., sex/death/intimacy and the relationships among them) and you have a very complex film. Rasen further shines as the story of a man who begins with the most honorable of intentions, only to find out, to his utter horror, that he has betrayed everything he thought he stood for.

BUT, on the other hand, there's the last 30 minutes or so of this film, which just left me scratching my head. Why do we need all this bizarre junk science thrown at us. What is Sadako up to? Is Ryuji a good guy or a bad guy? For that matter, why does everybody act like HE has all the answers? WILL SOMEBODY JUST STOP JABBERING FOR A MOMENT AND EXPLAIN THIS WHOLE LOOPY, HALF-BAKED PLOT FOR WORLD DOMINATION?!?!? PLEASE??!??!?

I can't reconcile any of this in my head. I know there's a way to make this movie great, and I think it involves re-writing the last half. Hey, Hollywood! Remake this one and see if it can be a little more palatable.

Although Spiral contradicts many things in the original film ringu it is actually based on the sequel book written by the original author of Ringu. He also worked closely with the director when making Spiral. He actually wrote three books in total but the third hasn't been made into a film probably due to the lack of popularity of spiral. If anything this version/universe of Ringu is more to what the author intended and is not an awful film I thought it had quite a good plot twist at the end, however it isn't wholly satisfying as it does contradict the original to much and takes away most of the horror aspect of Sadako. I think it should be appreciated as it is a well made film and is based on the authors original intentions as a sequel to the Ringu he created in his original novel and not despised as an attempt at a sequel just made up by this director as that isn't the case.

Set almost immediately after the events of Ringu (1998), Rasen/Spiral tells us the story of Mitsuo Ando (Koichi Sato), a forensics doctor who gets wrapped up with the "Ring curse" when his the body of an old friend, Ryuji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada, reprising his character from Ringu), makes its way onto his autopsy table. Will the curse continue?

Series Note: There are many different films, television series, books, comic books, etc. based on the "Ring Universe", and it's very complicated trying to sort them out. Rasen/Spiral was the original "Ringu 2". As such, it should be watched after Ringu (1998) (which you can choose to watch after Ringu 0: Basudei (2000), which is a prequel) and before or after the now official Ringu 2, made in 1999, which was made when audience reaction to Rasen/Spiral was less than favorable.

Like the other Japanese Ring films, Rasen/Spiral is a mixed bag. For much of its length it is a relatively slow moving drama, with only subtle horror elements. Yet, much of it is very atmospheric and when the horror material arrives, it is as effective as anything else in the series. In fact, if the film had continued with the tone of the first ten minutes, this would easily be my favorite Japanese Ring film--a far cry from the travesty that many claim. As it turned out, writer/director Joji Iida doesn't sustain that level of excellence, but he periodically returns to it. Rasen/The Spiral is also notable for the bizarre sci-fi turns it takes, which gradually become more absurdist (a good quality in my book) until the climax. If you're a fan of that kind of material, and you do not mind sequels with vastly different tones and foci, you should like this film a lot. For some others, the attempted scientific explanations of the "Ring curse" are a turn-off that saps some of the supernatural creepiness out of the rest of the series.

At the end of Ringu, scripter Hiroshi Takahashi and director Hideo Nakata suggested that the Ring curse operated something like a paranormal, deadly chain letter. In one of the better moves of Rasen/Spiral, Iida quickly trashes that idea. He pulls the rug out from our expectations and dispatches characters who were the focus in the previous film. On Iida's account, and possibly in the Koji Suzuki novel (also called Spiral) upon which Rasen/Spiral's script is based, The Ring curse is much less benign than such an easy solution would have it. Of course, audiences often feel alienated when their former heroes are so wantonly disposed in a sequel (and I'm guessing that's part of the reason for making an alternate reality Ringu 2 where the characters Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) and Yoichi Asakawa (Rikiya Otaka) return), but it's a move I love. I'm definitely a fan of nihilism in films, especially in light of its relative rarity. An American film that alienated audiences in a similar way, and which I also loved, is Alien 3 (1992).

Suzuki and Iida make Rasen/Spiral nicely parallel symbolically to the overall metaphors of the series. "Ring" is called ring for many reasons. The ring of the phone, the circle of the well, the moon, the shape of the mirror, the chain letter aspect, Sadako's eye, the circuitous route the curse takes via its video instantiations, and even the temporal period between encountering the video and the curse coming to its resolution, if one takes a cyclical view of time (as is more the case in many Asian cultures). Spiral is an extension of a Ring, figuratively and literally. The sci-fi aspect of the story this time around has the curse as more of a virus, which under the microscope looks ring-shaped with a "bruised" side, corresponding to the crack in the well. The path of the curse is more complex and spiraling this time around. And of course, a strand of DNA is a spiral.

DNA is important in this film. Ryuji first gives Ando an indirect clue to DNA via a piece of paper that Ando finds in Ryuji's stomach, and which he translates as "dada" (or "father", or "parent/parentage"), then "DNA". This thread of the plot eventually supplies the outrageously strange climax, which is just as much in the genre of "rubber reality" films as sci-fi, and keeps with the admirable nihilism evidenced earlier on.

Except for one small episode, and a few flashbacks or expository "fill-ins" to get new viewers up to speed, Sadako (Ringu's villain) is barely present in this film in her "normal" instantiation (she also happens to be portrayed by a different actress--Hinako Saeki, rather than Ringu's Rie Inou or Ringu 0's Yukie Nakama). The nature of the curse has changed. The subtext of the film makes Rasen/Spiral easily interpretable as an allegorical doom-harbinger for eugenics. Past evils have produced a quick, contagious and deadly mutated virus, only conquerable by genetic manipulation, which could just result in a new species supplanting Homo sapiens. The scientists--all doctors in this case--are both the saviors and the villains. Appropriately, Iida has physician supporting characters mysteriously vacillating from helpers/heroes to the infected/untrustworthy.

Unfortunately, some of this heady nightmare and ghost-fueled reality twisting is dampened by extended forays into "serious drama-land", and even a touch of an obligatory romance, ala Ringu 0. But it's never too long before the next supernatural occurrence, and to keep you entertained on the way, Rasen/Spiral has some of the better cinematography of the series.

I'm not someone who finds any films scary (even as a kid I never did) so I can't compare Rasen/Spiral to the rest of the series in that respect, but as a quality artwork touching on serious, important themes, this film deserves to not be missed, especially if you're at all a fan of the Ring series.

The Japanese 'Ringu' series is one odd one. This movie is a sequel to "Ringu", while there is also another movie that is actually named "Ringu 2". Is this even an official sequel? Both movies feature as well some of the same characters and actors as from the first "Ringu" movie Both movies are sequels, while this movie is being based on the novel by Kôji Suzuki and stays close to its source material, the other sequel "Ringu 2" is more of a movie sequel to "Ringu". You either accept this movie or "Ringu 2" as its sequel, since both are a direct sequel to "Ringu" but they themselves have nothing to do with each other. Are you still following it? To make things more complicated, these movies got followed by "Ringu 0: Bâsudei", which in return is a prequel to "Ringu". And then lets not even get started about all those 'Ringu/Ring' movie versions and television series from different countries.

While "Rasen" is perhaps the better written movie, "Ringu 2" is still the better made one, in terms of directing and build-up of it all. It's also more exciting to watch horror wise. "Rasen" is the sort of movie that relies more on its 'clever' writing rather than trying to be tense or scary.

What perhaps disappointed me most about this movie was how unengaged it was to watch. I wouldn't call "Rasen" a boring movie but it also isn't exactly an exciting one either. For a horror movie it just simply gets never scary or tense. It's a more slow moving movie, that focuses more on its uninteresting characters and other uninteresting aspects. It's a story that just never takes off.

Really not the best the 'Ringu' series or Japanese horror has to offer.

5/10

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