Ring (リング, Ringu) is a 1998 Japanese supernatural psychological horror film directed by Hideo Nakata and written by Hiroshi Takahashi, based on the 1991 novel by Koji Suzuki.
[4] After its release, Ring was a box office hit in Japan and internationally and was acclaimed by critics, who praised its atmosphere, slow-paced horror and themes.
During a sleepover, high schoolers Tomoko and Masami discuss an urban legend about a video tape that curses its viewers to die in seven days after a foreboding phone call.
Before her suicide, Shizuko gained notoriety following a public demonstration of her psychic ability organized by ESP researcher Dr. Heihachiro Ikuma, with whom she had an affair.
After failing to track down Sadako, Reiko realizes that Ryūji never received a phone call after watching the tape as she did at the cabin in Izu.
Guided by an apparition, Reiko realizes that she unwittingly found the actual way to survive the curse: copying the tape and showing it to someone else within seven days.
Colette Balmain identifies: "In the figure of Sadako, Ring [utilises the] vengeful yūrei archetype of conventional Japanese horror".
She argues how this traditional Japanese figure is expressed via a video tape which "embodies contemporary anxieties, in that it is technology through which the repressed past reasserts itself".
Screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi and director Hideo Nakata collaborated to work on the script after reading Suzuki's novel and watching Fuji Television's 1995 made-for-TV film, directed by Chisui Takigawa.
[13] In the Philippines, the film was given limited releases as Ring: Circle of Evil on both December 4, 2002,[14] and January 11, 2003,[15] to coincide with the North American remake's release on January 17. it had a remake by Gore Verbinski and written by Ehren Krueger with the most recognizable stars and cast being Naomi watts, Martin henderson, and Raecheal Bella.
[18] Variety stated that Ring's "most notable success" has been in Hong Kong, where it became the biggest grosser during the first half of the year, beating popular American films such as The Matrix.
[28] Ring was released directly to home video in the United States and Canada by DreamWorks with English, Spanish, and French subtitles on March 4, 2003,[1] under the transliterated title Ringu.
The picture grading and restoration, which took place at Imagica Labs in Tokyo, was supervised and approved by Ring cinematographer Jun'ichirō Hayashi.
The site's critical consensus reads: "Ringu combines supernatural elements with anxieties about modern technology in a truly frightening and unnerving way".
[33] Sight & Sound critic Mark Kermode praised the film's "timeless terror", with its "combination of old folk devils and contemporary moral panics" which appeal to both teen and adult audiences alike.
[12] While Adam Smith of Empire Online finds the film "throttled by its over complexity, duff plotting and a distinct lack of actual action",[34] Kermode emphasizes that "one is inclined to conclude that it is the telling, rather than the content of the tale, that is all-important".
[12] Variety agrees that the slow pace, with "its gradual evocation of evil lying await beneath the surface of normality", is one of the film's biggest strengths.
"Circuit") in Japan), Takashi Shimizu's The Grudge (呪怨, Juon) (2000), Hideo Nakata's Dark Water (仄暗い水の底から, Honogurai Mizu no Soko kara, lit.
[41] Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hollywood horror had largely been dominated by the slasher sub-genre, which relied on on-screen violence, shock tactics, and gore.
[41] Ring, whose release in Japan roughly coincided with The Blair Witch Project in the United States, helped to revitalize the genre by taking a more restrained approach to horror, leaving much of the terror to the audience's imagination.
[7] In addition to Japanese productions this boom also managed to bring attention to similar films made in East Asia at the same time such as A Tale of Two Sisters from South Korea and The Eye from Hong Kong.