Here’s some more post Halloween shit for you. What I did this year was a mini
Ring-a-thon. I saw
Ringu
and
The Ring back to back. In case you didn’t know
Ringu (or just
Ring) is
the original 1998 Japanese production based on the book of the same name (Ring
that is, not Ringu; in fact I think I should be calling this thing
Ring but I’m gonna stick with
Ringu because it’ll be easier to
differentiate). From what I can tell the
book and the movie are quite different with the book being more of a science fiction
thriller and the movie taking it in a horror direction while also simplifying
the storyline and characters. The
American remake follows the Japanese film but makes a significant number of
changes (this was so audiences in the States would find it more appealing). The first remake actually was a Korean one
done in 1999 that’s supposed to be more faithful to the book but I haven’t seen
it so I can’t comment on it. I’d like to
get around to it one day though. In the
meantime there’s plenty here to sink your teeth into comparing
Ringu with
The Ring.
Before we dive in though I’d like to give you all a little
background on where I’m coming from.
This is now the third time I’ve seen these two pictures back to back, or
at least very close to each other. In
2002 (if memory serves) I saw
Ringu a
couple of days before checking out
The
Ring during its theatrical run. That
first time I only thought
Ringu was
slightly better. Then in 2010 I saw the
two together for the Halloween season and thought
Ringu was definitely better but
The
Ring was still very enjoyable.
Finally here we are, 2013. Once
again, back to back and belly to belly. So
my point is that this has been a long time in the making. You may want to grab a cup of coffee or a
bottle of grain alcohol or some shit, this might take a while.
Spoilers
everywhere. Although I feel like by this
point everyone knows who’s responsible for the murders and what happens at the
end of day seven. If you really don’t know
then I do think it’s something worth saving up for.
Ok, let’s start with the female lead (there’s no need to
explain the plot, right?). Ringu has Nanako Matsushima (Japanese
shit) as Reiko Asakawa and The Ring
has Naomi Watts (Tank Girl, Le divorce)
as Rachel. Asakawa is a hard working
journalist single mother. She takes it
upon herself to find out what happened to her niece, Tomoko, because she died
mysteriously. So she’s self-motivated,
caring and an all around good person. Matsushima
does a good job and carries the movie fine.
Rachel on the other hand is much more of a brassy dame. One thing about the American version in
general is that it’s sorta belligerent in its attitude (if a movie can be
belligerent) which is missing from the Japanese one. Rachel is no exception. We’re introduced to her by overhearing her
threaten to poke someone’s eye out on the phone. This leads to her exclaiming “shit!” in front
of her eight year old son, who she’s late picking up from school by the way. This is a pretty different character from the
reserved Asakawa. A couple other things
about Rachel is that she’s apparently not a very good reporter because her boss
wants to fire her (if that scene was a joke it didn’t really come off that way)
and she doesn’t look into her niece’s death on her own like Asakawa. Rachel’s sister asks her to do it. What’s kinda funny about that is Rachel
wastes no time as she starts questioning her niece’s friends about what they
know in the very next scene. Anyway,
Rachel isn’t a bad person or a bad mother but the American filmmakers felt she
needed to be more headstrong and less reticent.
Watts pulls off the role and does fine.
The ex-husband characters are even more different. Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada (
The Wolverine)) is kind of like Rachel in that he has more of an
attitude and is determined as hell. He
also has just a touch of ESP. Not a lot
but enough to have some backstory flash in his mind towards the end when he
touches a guy. Sanada does well here
too, especially at the end when he’s being frightened to death.
While Ryuji may be very orderly in his approach Noah (Martin
Henderson (Windtalkers)) on the other
hand is anything but. This guy I find
irritating. He’s an immature doofus who
doesn’t believe in the curse until about half way through the film. The purpose of this character is extremely
minimized in The Ring. Noah does almost nothing to help uncover the
mystery of the tape. When he knocks over
the marbles in the cabin that pools to show where the well is that was an
accident. And when he sees that there’s
something hidden behind the wallpaper in Samara’s room in the barn he doesn’t
know what the tree image means. When he
looks through Anna Morgan’s medical files he doesn’t discover anything new and
when he goes to find Samara’s institutional video tape it’s missing. Ryuji does just as much leg work as Asakawa
making him a vital component to the story.
Noah exists essentially so we can see Samara kill someone off at the end
of the movie. He’s our guinea pig for finding
what happens at the end of day seven.
But I can’t fault Henderson for his performance. If this is what the character was supposed to
be then he nailed it.
The sons, Yoichi and Aidan, aren’t dissimilar but they’re
used in different ways. Yoichi in
Ringu is a smart, emotionless,
independent little boy. Aidan is the
same except he plays a bigger role in the overall plot. When Yoichi sees the video nothing happens (I
mean he gets the curse but that’s it).
When Aidan watches it Samara speaks to him (off camera) and he helps
Rachel more than Noah to figure shit out.
He tells Rachel about the barn (and even draws a picture of it) and he
tells Rachel that finding Samara’s bones isn’t the end of the curse. Yoichi is a delight because he’s not in the
film very much and doesn’t help with the investigation. Aidan’s annoying because that shit he babbles
on about Samara talking to him, knowing stuff about the curse and Samara (maybe
or maybe not through ESP) and him calling his mother “Rachel” isn’t necessary. Rachel could’ve just looked in the barn on
her own, gotten a call from Noah that the curse was still on and using “Rachel”
instead of “mom” isn’t awful but just comes off as kinda stupid. The dialogue they give this kid is absolutely
fucking terrible which doesn’t help either (ex: (in a whisper talking tone)
“don’t you understand Rachel…she never sleeps”). This glassy eyed little prick gets more frustrating
with every viewing. Yoichi doesn’t call
his mother by her first name. Take a
lesson from him.
How about that tape itself.
Ringu’s is fairly short and
creepier in my opinion. The images are softer
and not so clear.
The Ring’s video is at least twice as long and tries to go for more
shocking material like quivering severed fingers in a box, insects, bloody red
water, etc. It doesn’t play as well
though.
The Ring’s is clearly trying too hard to come up with scary
images. Of course this is a subjective
thing but I think
Ringu’s is more effective. It’s more mysterious and mesmerizing than an
upside down spinning chair and a tall ladder.
Next is the phone call.
You’ve seen the video so someone’s supposed to call you up and tell you
you’ll die in seven days. In
Ringu you don’t hear anything on the
other end of the line. Asakawa picks up
the phone, listens for a sec and then slams it down. In
The
Ring we actually hear someone say “seven days”. Not “you will die in seven days” or “you have
seven days to live” but only “seven days”.
If you didn’t already know the rumor about the curse you’d probably have
no fucking clue what that meant. But it
was better the way they did it in
Ringu. Sure it’s a small thing in the scope of the
big picture but it’s worth mentioning. This
is the ol’ what-you-imagine-is-scarier-than-what-they-actually-show-you device. How do you make a voice telling you your
imminent doom sound scary? That’s very
tough which is why it’s probably better left to the imagination. Also, we have no idea if you get the phone
call everywhere or just inside that one cabin.
In
Ringu you would only get
the phone call in the cabin because that’s where the well was located. But in
The
Ring Rachel never picks up the phone when it rings in her apartment after
people see the video there. So it
could’ve been Samara slotting those folks in for an appointment in seven days
or a telemarketer trying to sell her a timeshare. Maybe they sort that out in the sequels? (Actually I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come up
in the American version of
The Ring Two)
The backstories of the little girl and her mother are where the
biggest differences between the two are found.
For the Japanese one the mother was clairvoyant and had a daughter that
was way more powerful than her. Little
Sadako could wish someone dead and would do so at the drop of a hat. This was too damn much for dad so he knocked
her over the head and dropped her down a well.
Now this psychic bullshit is not something that Americans were gonna go
for so they came up with an altered explanation of events. Here’s what we got: the mother gave birth to
an evil child, so evil that she affected the town where she lived. Fishing went bad, horses died off, etc. The mother has her institutionalized but that
wasn’t good enough so she slips a plastic bag over the kid’s head and drops her
down a well. And even though when you
boil it down it’s just as simple of a story as the Japanese version it feels
more complicated when you’re watching it for some reason.
I don’t have a problem with either story. What I do have a problem with is how the
daughter is handled in
The Ring. Sadako is kept in the dark more in
Ringu and I think that helps to make
things more intriguing. In
The Ring we see Samara as a human a
bunch and we also see her old room in the barn and it dampens her creepiness
significantly for me. With
Ringu she’s a monster through and
through. We never see her face. It’s always a mess of long black hair. Plus since we’re talking about a cursed video
tape and supernatural shit here the ESP angle works better than just an evil
kid that wants revenge. It makes more
sense (I guess you could say) that Sadako would be able to kill folks from
beyond the grave because she had mystical abilities to begin with. It’s more of a stretch with Samara because of
the plain vanilla evil motivation.
Finally, we come to the end of the picture. The big reveal. I think you can sense a pattern here and it should
come as no surprise that I thought
Ringu’s
ending was executed better than
The Ring’s. In
The
Ring when Samara steps out of the TV she still flickers and has resolution
problems like an old tube TV or VHS tape.
Why? Why wouldn’t she turn into
her human form? Why would she still look
like an image from the tape? It was a
poor stylistic choice because they’re implying that Samara
is this video now. But that
doesn’t jive with her supposedly being a bigger malevolent presence (horse
suicides, etc.). I thought she was like the
Devil’s child or some shit and not a fuckin’ flickering TV image. In
Ringu
Sadako’s human, I mean a totally evil human but a human, when she attacks
Ryuji. She doesn’t perform any weird CGI
movements either like when Samara teleports closer to Noah causing him to crash
into some metal shelves. It’s a lot
creepier if you have this thing that’s steadily moving towards you that you
know you can’t stop.
Truthfully though I would accept
The Ring’s finale if it wasn’t for Samara’s frowny face. The thing that’s supposed to scare you to
death is a girl making a pouty face at you.
With
Ringu you only see one
eye and it’s a bizarre looking eye too with only half the pupil showing. It’s more effective than giving us the whole
face.
Look, I’m not saying show me nothing. There has to be some sort of payoff. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again,
you have to be smart about what you show and what you don’t show. Giving us the whole angry girl face is not frightening
at all. That one fucked up eye is all
you need.
To round this behemoth out here are a couple of other things
I noticed:
- Japan likes their media stylized; it’s a
signature part of their culture. The Ring however is the more stylized
movie between the two. Ringu goes for a plainer and more
realistic production while The Ring
is more surreal in its approach.
- The well scene at the end is handled in
completely opposing manners in each film.
Rachel and Noah find the well at the end by accident and Rachel gets
knocked in (by Samara?). Asakawa and
Ryuji know exactly where to look for the well (even though they don’t have any
clues that tell them to look specifically under the cabin as opposed to in the
surrounding area) and the two of them voluntarily climb down into the well.
- Gore Verbinski must’ve been heavily influence by
David Fincher because it has the same dark and glossy yet gritty look that
Fincher is known for. He even tinted the
whole thing a blue-green-gray-ish color instead of the usual yellow that
Fincher likes to use.
- Brian Cox’s suicide in The Ring was obviously supposed to be more gruesome but was clearly
edited down for the PG-13 rating.
- Does anyone know what that scene was about with
Ryuji starring at someone’s white shoed feet and saying to himself, “was it
you? Did you do this?” It’s never brought up again. Kind of a strange scene that seemingly didn’t
need to be in the movie.
- There’s an odd continuity issue in Ringu when Asakawa goes to check the
cabin for the first time. You can see
when she enters that she’s holding the key in her hand for that particular
cabin but where did she get it from? She
snoops around the cabin before she meets with the guy at the front desk. It doesn’t look like the key is waiting in
the door of the cabin either. In The Ring this problem doesn’t
exist. Rachel goes to the front desk
first before entering the cabin. My guess
is the Ringu filmmakers felt there
was pacing problem.
- (This one isn’t something I noticed but just a
fact) Ringu gets its title from the curse being cyclical (in order to
live you need to make a copy of the tape and show it to someone else). For some reason The Ring made it into a visual thing where there are rings
everywhere in the movie and Rachel even says something like “you see the ring
before you die”.
- The Ring
gives an explanation as to why seven days.
They say that Samara lasted for seven days when she was thrown down the
well before dying. This isn’t mentioned
at all in Ringu.
- There’s no blood in Ringu but they did add some for The
Ring.
- The characters in Ringu accept the curse from the onset while in The Ring Rachel and Noah are skeptics that need to be convinced. Interesting cultural divide there.
Alright let’s wrap this shit up. The idea for these films is unconventional
horror material which is part of the reason why I find them particularly
fascinating. And it’s unconventional
because, as I said earlier, the book is supposed to be more thriller than
horror. So what we have here isn’t a
slasher or ghost story in the typical sense.
There is a vengeful spirit but even if you find out who and where she is
she can’t be stopped. That angle of it
is one of the aspects I enjoy the most. The
only way to survive the curse is to infect someone else with it. That’s pretty fuckin’ nasty and cruel as a
bitch.
Overall I like
Ringu
better than
The Ring.
Ringu
is actually less of a horror picture but at the same time the imagery and the
atmosphere I find to be spookier. And with
how they handled Sadako coming out of the TV at the end looks amazing. It’s one of the best horror scenes ever put
to film in my opinion. With
The Ring the filmmakers felt they had to
add more horror-y type stuff to make it more appealing to American audiences. So that’s why you get scenes like the horse
killing itself, a little girl being interrogated in a mental institution, Brian
Cox killing himself, noses bleeding, etc.
They’re all elements that don’t necessarily improve the story. They’re there simply to have more things
happen so the audience won’t get bored.
Plus the filmmakers thought we wouldn’t go for some magical ESP crap in
this country. Maybe they were right
‘cause
The Ring was a big hit.
The Ring does
almost nothing better than Ringu. It feels kinda dumbed down, a lot cheesier and
almost aggressive by comparison. The
characters are less likable, the big ending wasn’t done as well and despite being
a pretty film to look at it doesn’t feel as scary.
But to be fair here are some things I liked better in
The Ring: numbering the days so we know
exactly how much time we have left, I really dig Verbinski’s cinematography
(his films always look good), killing the daughter with a bag over her head
(instead of being bludgeoned) and that was cool when Rachel pulls one of those
small round medical pads out of her mouth.
Looking at these two specific movies side by side is a
really fun experiment. They’re similar
yet different enough so that it doesn’t feel like you’re watching the same
picture twice. There are plenty of big
and little things to notice and mull over.
The cultural differences are also pretty stark which makes this project
very interesting just on that level. For
example, in the opening scene the niece and her friend are portrayed way more
innocently in Ringu as opposed to
these two characters in The Ring
where one calls the other a “ho” and asks where the Vicodin is.
Comparing these two is also a good exercise in what makes
something scary. Let’s take a look at the
brief moment when the niece’s corpse is revealed. In both films we first have a wider shot of
the whole body and then a close up of the face.
The difference is in The Ring
the corpse’s head nods down, in Ringu
the head stays still. Which do you think
is creepier? It’s such a little thing
but I think that shit goes a long way. You
could also look at the video tapes. Which
images get to you the most? Is it better
to be longer and show more or shorter and show less?
Ringu is one of
the best and most unique horror films ever made. It’s relatively simple yet there’s a lot to
uncover if you dig into it. This film only
keeps getting better with every viewing.
Unfortunately The Ring keeps
getting worse. It’s not a bad picture,
it really isn’t. And I would definitely
like it more if there weren’t other versions to compare it to but that’s not
the case. I think it’s more interesting
in the context of this comparison than it is on its own.
If you haven’t seen either one then why the hell did you
read this whole thing? Whatever, I don’t
really give a shit. But you should
definitely check them both out. You
don’t have to do them back to back but they do lend themselves very well to
that scenario if that’s something you’re interested in.
Boy that took it out of me.
I’ll just relax by watching this unmarked tape that’s been sitting on my
counter for a while. Jees, anytime I pop
one of these in the only thing that’s on there is an old episode of Sex and the City. Well at least that doesn’t carry a curse…oh
shit, does it?!
A cruise ship gets attacked by a giant sea creature. Shortly thereafter a group of mercenaries
boards the ship to rob it but run into said creature and have to fight for
their lives. 
