Ring (film)
Ring | |||||
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Japanese name | |||||
Katakana | リング | ||||
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Directed by | Koji Suzuki | ||||
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Junichiro Hayashi[2] | ||||
Edited by | Nobuyuki Takahashi[1] | ||||
Music by | Kenji Kawai[1] | ||||
Production company | Ringu/Rasen Production Committee[1] | ||||
Distributed by | Toho | ||||
Release date |
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Running time | 95 minutes[1] | ||||
Country | Japan | ||||
Language | Japanese | ||||
Budget | $1.5 million[3] | ||||
Box office | $19.5 million (est.) |
Ring (リング, Ringu) is a 1998 Japanese
Production took approximately nine months.
Plot
During a sleepover, high schoolers Tomoko and Masami discuss an urban legend about a video tape that curses its viewers to die in 7 days after a foreboding phone call. Tomoko then confesses that last week she and her friends watched a strange videotape and received an inexplicable phone call afterward. They receive a false alarm phone call, and then Masami goes to the toilet. Tomoko witnesses the TV turn on by itself and is killed by an unseen presence.
Reiko enlists the help of her psychic ex-husband
In Ōshima, Reiko and Ryūji learn about Shizuko Yamamura, the woman in the tape. 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. When confronting Shizuko's brother Takashi, the pair learn through a vision that during the demonstration, Shizuko's young daughter Sadako, whose name is hinted in the tape, psychically killed a journalist who decried Shizuko's abilities. 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.
Back at the cabin, Reiko and Ryūji find a sealed well in the crawlspace. Through another vision, they learn that Dr. Ikuma trapped Sadako inside the well. They conclude that Sadako remained alive and that the curse was born when a videotape "recorded" the rage she had projected. When draining the water, they find Sadako's remains. Reiko's 7-day deadline passes and she remains alive, leading them to believe the curse is broken.
The next day, Ryūji's TV turns on by itself, showing the well at the end of the tape. Sadako's vengeful spirit staggers from the well and out of the TV, advancing toward Ryūji and killing him. Reiko, who had been trying to call Ryūji at the time, hears his last moments over the phone. 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 7 days. Desperate to save Yōichi, Reiko drives to her father's home to show him the tape.
Cast
- Reiko Asakawa, a journalist who investigates her niece's death and finds the cursed video tape.
- Ryūji Takayama, Reiko's former husband, a former medical student turned university professor. He has a degree of sixth sensethat detects supernatural auras.
- Yōichi Asakawa, Reiko's young son who also has a sixth sense like his father.
- Miki Nakatani as Mai Takano, Ryuji's student.
- Yuko Takeuchias Tomoko Ōishi, Reiko's niece who watches the cursed video tape and is amongst its first victims.
- Hitomi Satoas Masami Kurahashi, Tomoko's best friend.
- Daisuke Ban as Dr. Heihachiro Ikuma, Sadako's father who threw her down a well.
- Rie Inō as Sadako Yamamura, a young woman with psychic powers who was thrown down a well where she died; her spirit lived on within a video tape.
- Masako as Shizuko Yamamura, Sadako's mother. She too had psychic powers but a disastrous press demonstration led to her suicide.
- Yōichi Numataas Takashi Yamamura, Sadako's uncle who runs an inn on Oshima Island.
- Yutaka Matsushige as Yoshino, a journalist associate of Reiko.
- Katsumi Muramatsu as Kōichi Asakawa, Reiko's father.
Themes and interpretations
Critics have discussed Ring's preoccupations with Japanese tradition's collision with modernity. 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".[5]
Ruth Goldberg argues that Ring expresses "ambivalence about motherhood". She reads Reiko as a mother who – due to the new potential for women's independence – neglects her "natural" role as martyred homemaker in pursuit of an independent identity, subsequently neglecting her child. Goldberg identifies a doubling effect whereby the unconscious conflicts of Reiko's family are expressed via the supernatural in the other family under Reiko's investigation.[6]
Jay McRoy reads the ending hopefully: if the characters therapeutically understand their conflicts, they can live on.[7] Balmain, however, is not optimistic; she reads the replication of the video as technology spreading, virus-like, throughout Japan.[5]
Title
The film's title, Ring, can be interpreted in several ways, such as alluding to the never ending cyclical nature of the ring curse/virus. Another interpretation is that "ring" relates to the phone call which warns those that view the video tape that they will die in seven days,[8] as well as to the view of the ring of light seen from the bottom of the well where Sadako's body was left to decompose.[9]
Production
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After the moderate success of the 1991 novel
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.[10] The broadcast version of the 1995 film was re-edited and released on home video under a new title, Ring: Kanzenban (lit. "Ring: The Complete Edition";[10] Nakata did not state which version of it he and Takahashi watched.
In their film script, Takashi and Nakata changed the protagonist's gender (from male to female), name (from Kazuyuki Asakawa to Reiko Asakawa), marital status (from married to divorced) and child's gender and name (from daughter Yoko to son Yoichi).[10]
With the budget of US$1.5 million, the entire production took nine months and one week. According to director Nakata, the script and pre-production process took three or four months, shooting five weeks and post-production four months.[4]
The special effects on the cursed video tape and some parts in the film were shot on a 35 mm film which was passed on to a laboratory in which a computer added a "grainy" effect.[4] Extended visual effects were used in the scene in which the ghost of Sadako Yamamura climbs out of the television. First, they shot the kabuki actress Rie Inoo walking backwards in a jerky, exaggerated motion. They then played the film in reverse to portray an unnatural-looking walk for Sadako.[11]
Release
Ring was released in Japan on January 31, 1998, where it was distributed by
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.
Box office
In Japan, the film earned a distribution income (
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
In France, the film sold 94,257 tickets,[23] equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately €506,160[24] (US$452,737).[25] In South Korea, 56,983 tickets were sold in the capital city of Seoul,[26] equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately ₩341,970,000[27] ($287,656).[25] The film also grossed $149,816 in Chile, the United Kingdom and Russia, adding up to an estimated worldwide gross revenue of approximately $19,539,209.[28]
Home media
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.[29]
In the United Kingdom, it was watched by 390,000 viewers on television during the first half of 2005, making it the sixth most-watched foreign-language film on UK television during that period. Ring 2 also drew 360,000 viewers on UK television during the same period, adding up to a combined 750,000 UK television viewership for both Ring films during the first half of 2005.[30]
To coincide with its 20th anniversary,
Reception
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The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 98% based on 43 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.5 out of 10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Ringu combines supernatural elements with anxieties about modern technology in a truly frightening and unnerving way".[33]
Ring was ranked No. 69 in
Influence
The international success of the Japanese films launched a revival of horror filmmaking in Japan that resulted in such pictures as
Influence on Western cinema
Ring had some influence on Western cinema and gained cult status in the West.[41]
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hollywood horror had largely been dominated by the
All of these films were later remade in English. Released in 2002, The Ring reached number 1 at the box office and grossed slightly more in Japan than the original.[5] The original Ring grossed ¥1.7 billion in 1998,[17] while The Ring remake grossed ¥1.75 billion in 2002.[42]
Sequels and remakes
The original sequel was
A television series, Ring: The Final Chapter, was made, with a similar storyline but many changes in characters and their backstories. A South Korean remake The Ring Virus was made in 1999, as well as an American remake, The Ring, in 2002.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Galbraith IV 2008, p. 402.
- ^ a b "Back cover of Ring Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
- ^ "The "Ring" Master: Interview with Hideo Nakata". offscreen.com. Retrieved 2022-11-16.
- ^ a b c "The "Ring" Master: Interview with Hideo Nakata".
- ^ ISBN 978-0748624751.
- Scarecrow Press. pp. 370–385.
- ^ ISBN 978-9042023314.
- ISBN 978-1617131196.
The story goes that seven days after viewing the tape, those who watch will receive a phone call (hence the first interpretation of 'the ring') [...]
- ISBN 978-0765609748.
- ^ a b c Meikle, Dennis (2005), The Ring Companion (London: Titan Books).
- ^ "Ringu (1998)" – via www.imdb.com.
- ^ a b c Kermode, Mark (2011), 'Review of Ring', BFI | Sight and Sound.
- Fantasia Film Festival. Archived from the originalon October 6, 2001. Retrieved February 3, 2016.
- ^ "The "Video Curse" Starts Its Killing Spree on Dec. 04! Exclusively at SM Megamall and Glorietta 4!". Philippine Daily Inquirer. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc. 1 December 2002. p. A29. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
- ^ "Watch It Where It All Started". Philippine Daily Inquirer. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc. 11 January 2003. p. A22. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
- ^ "1998年(1月~12月)" (in Japanese). Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Inc. Retrieved October 13, 2015.
- ^ a b "邦画興行収入ランキング". SF MOVIE DataBank. General Works. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-7486-3059-2.
- ^ "The Ring 2". Variety. Vol. 375, no. 11. August 2, 1999.
- ^ a b Ma, Kevin. "Doraemon sets box office record in Hong Kong". Film Business Asia. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved March 4, 2015.
- ^ "破鬼后貞子17年紀錄 《你的名字》稱霸台北日片票房 – 自由娛樂". Liberty Times. 4 November 2016. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
- ^ "Historical currency converter with official exchange rates (TWD)". fxtop.com. 31 December 1999. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
- ^ "Ring (1998)". JP's Box Office. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
- UniFrance. November 2014. p. 28. Retrieved 11 February 2019.
- ^ a b "Official exchange rate (LCU per US$, period average)". World Bank. Retrieved 11 February 2019.
- ^ "영화정보". KOFIC. Korean Film Council. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
The Ring
- ^ Park, Seung Hyun (2000). "Average Ticket Prices in Korea, 1974–1997". A Cultural Interpretation of Korean Cinema, 1988–1997. Indiana University. p. 119.
1997 […] Foreign […] 6,000
- ^ "Ringu". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "Ringu". Amazon.
- ^ "4. Film on UK Television in the First Half of 2005". Research and Statistics Bulletin. 3 (1). British Film Institute, UK Film Council: 20-34 (26-7). September 2005. Retrieved 21 April 2022 – via Yumpu.
- ^ Miska, Brad (February 25, 2019). "'Ringu's Original DP Helped Restore the Japanese Classic to its Original Horrific Glory!". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved February 26, 2019.
- ^ "The Ringu Collection". Amazon. 29 October 2019.
- CBS Interactive. 31 January 1998. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
- ^ Smith, Adam (n.d.), 'Review of Ring', Empire Online.
- ^ (1999), 'Review: The Ring', Variety Magazine.
- TheGuardian.com. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
- ^ Ring: the film that frightened me most, The Guardian, Tuesday 21 October 2014
- ^ 'The 100 Best Films of World Cinema - 69. Ringu', Empire Magazine.
- Time Out. Retrieved April 13, 2014.
- Time Out. Retrieved April 13, 2014.
- ^ a b c Martin, Daniel (2009), Japan's Blair Witch: Restraint, Maturity, and Generic Canons in the British Critical Reception of Ring, Cinema Journal 48, Number 3, Spring: 35-51.
- ^ "過去興行収入上位作品". Eiren. Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan. 2002. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
Works cited
- ISBN 978-1461673743.
External links
- Ring at IMDb
- Ring at AllMovie
- Ring at Rotten Tomatoes
- Snowblood Apple's Ring Cycle article, an overview of all Ring films.