For this one, let’s head out east to Japan for a famous flick turning twenty-five—it may be dated in its own way, but it remains an interesting piece to examine. Here’s my take on the original Ring.
Based on the novel series by Koji Suzuki, Ring is a fusion of something popular in East Asia cultures for centuries—that of the ghost story, which makes sense considering the veneration of ancestors and whatnot. After all, what’s more disturbing than confronting unsettled spirits of those to whom you still hold some responsibility? Ring takes this a step further by fusing it with the trappings of then contemporary Japanese culture and trappings, with television, VHS, phones and all.
You might know the premise—watch a strange recording on television or tape, you get a phone call telling you there’s but seven days to live, then something creepy happens. We all chuckle at VHS being so integral to the plot—but it’s probably no more different than current media factoring actual social media sites into their plots.
After some mysterious deaths, the plot takes us to Nanako Matsushima as Reiko Asakawa, a reporter who decides to get to the bottom of this tape mystery, soon teaming up with her ex Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada). The film’s a somewhat sedate slow burn, albeit punctuated by a looming atmosphere of creepiness—it becomes apparent to Reiko that there might not only be more truth than she thought to the story, but it’s not just her life at stake either.
Even if it’s not thrill a minute, there’s still something interesting to it all—the film fuses traditional Japanese imagery (with our specter Sadako being fundamentally a modernized take on the folkloric Yurei ghost) with the trappings of technology, and this goes into the plot more than just imagery. We find out stories of seers put under scientific scrutiny, and this crossing over with more modern takes on psychic powers—which, slightly oddly, are treated rather matter-of-factly here.
There are nice shots also as we delve into the more out of the way backwoods area of Japan, in the shadows of forest-covered volcanos and all. And there’s of course the ghostly tape itself—one that still remains an iconic sequence of images in horror, and was translated fairly faithfully when of course the film was remade in the states a few years later.
And of course, there’s that one scene near the end where Sadako finally reveals herself that everyone remembers, and has been referenced time and time over…
Ring certainly made an impression in turn of the millennium Japan, with a much bigger franchise spiralling out of Iit, even video games (very odd, unintentionally hilarious video games, but still). The American remake series took its own course, and in time, confronted the need to transplant the story into the digital age—which it did, even if the execution left something to be desired.
Still, Ring represents that start of Japanese horror films taking on technology—I also recommend Pulse in this vein, which came later. And what was it not doing if not predicting viral videos and all? Off-kilter as it may be in a few parts, it’s still a nicely chilling watch twenty-five years on…
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