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"P l a y i n t h e b r i n e,
G o b l i n s w i l l
b e t h i n e"
Ring was reviewed by Mark Vallen - August,
2000
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RING
(Ringu) is
a traditional style Japanese Ghost story updated for
the digital age... but it's also one of the smartest
Gothic Horror stories ever committed to film! Made by
Hideo Nakata in 1999, a subtitled version of
the film premiered in Los Angeles during the Egyptian
Theatre's Horror and Science Fiction Film Festival
of August 2000. We here at the BLACK MOON were amongst
the handful of movie buffs lucky enough to enjoy the
showing of this remarkable cinematic experiment in terror.
RING has the feel of an ancient Ghost story told by
old Japanese Fishermen. It could have been a story from
Lafcadio Hearn's 1903 book based on Japanese
tales of the supernatural
(KWAIDAN, or "Weird Tales").
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RING
is an intrinsically Japanese yarn so chilling that even
the most jaded Westerner cannot watch it without their
blood running cold and their hair standing on end! The
brilliance of RING is the way in which the film embraces
the aesthetics of Japan's traditional Ghost story while
presenting it's tale in a thoroughly modern context.
The movie succeeds in making computers, televisions,
and video tapes seem unearthly and threatening. In the
film, modernity offers no refuge from the vengeful spirits
of the netherworld.
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The
frightful saga centers on Reiko Asakawa, a Female
reporter investigating rumors of a video tape that brings
about the death of all who view it within seven days.
Being a journalist, Reiko-san cannot help the impulse
to view the mysterious video once she acquires it. At
first the tape's disjointed imagery seems bizarre and
nonsensical... so Reiko-san enlists the help of her
ex-Husband Ryuji Takayama (who also views the
tape). Together they try to solve the video's riddle,
but it's true meaning slowly becomes apparent to them...
it is a curse from beyond the grave and they are doomed
for having watched it! They have only seven days left
to live.
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Ryuji-san
manages to translate part of the nightmare tape's audio...
a rant spoken in an obscure dialect that proclaims;
"... play in the brine and Goblins will be thine."
It is a major clue that sends Reiko-san and Ryuji-san
off to confront the resident evil behind the cursed
tape. Their investigation succeeds in discovering the
root cause behind the haunted video tape, but this hardly
lessens their plight. The traumatized couple soon finds
their predicament only growing worse. In
the final terrifying moments of the film, the supernatural
and material worlds collide with more intensity than
Western film goers have seen in decades. Not since Robert
Wise's original THE HAUNTING (1963), has
a Ghost story actually managed to unnerve me so completely.
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RING,
which is based on a set of best-selling books by Suzuki
Koji, has been a tremendous box office hit all across
Asia. It has spawned two sequel films in Japan ("RING
2" and "RING 0"), and even a two volume manga set drawn
by artist Inagaki Misao. The images illustrating
this review come from Misao's marvelously spooky manga.
RING
is a fairly low budget film, but it doesn't suffer in
the least for this due to its superior story telling.
There are no grandiose special affects or other contrivances
to distract from the eerie tale that is at the film's
core. RING is the movie that THE BLAIR WITCH
project should have been... lavish in detail
and complexity, sophisticated in it's meshing of the
metaphysical with the modern, and thoroughly chilling
in its entirety. I
cannot recommend this macabre masterpiece highly enough!
It is truly a pinnacle film of it's genre.
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Since
we first saw the film in 2000, moviegoers will be well
aware that an Hollywood remake of the film, also called
"The Ring" and starring Naomi Watts,
has since been made, with a sequel, "The Ring
Two", following soon after. While we will decline
to comment on the remakes here, most film critics will
agree that the original version of a film is always
the best. The good news is, that the popularity of the
Hollywood version inspired Universal to release
the original film in subtitled DVD format! Now you can
see for yourself the film that started all the commotion...
click on the Amazon link at the top of this page
to judge for yourself!
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