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. The film stars Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, and Hiroyuki Sanada, and follows a reporter who is racing to investigate the mystery behind a cursed video tape; whoever watches the tape dies seven days after doing so. The film is also titled The Ring (stylized as the Ring) in Japan and was released in North America as Ringu.
Production took approximately nine months, and the film was shot back-to-back with a sequel, Spiral, featuring much of the same cast but involving neither Nakata nor Takahashi; both films were released together in Japan on January 31, 1998, with the studio hoping for the popularity of the novel to make both films successful. 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.
Spawning a popular franchise, the film has been highly influential, triggering both a western popularization of Japanese horror, including with its own English-language adaptations starting with 2002's The Ring, and a renaissance of Japanese horror films, inspiring other successful franchises such as Ju-On and One Missed Call and spearheading Hollywood's horror films' transition from slashers into more atmospheric films in the 2000s. Despite the success of the original film, Spiral was largely ignored upon release, leading to Nakata and Takahashi making Ring 2 (1999), another sequel ignoring the events of Spiral.
Plot During a sleepover, high schoolers Tomoko and Masami discuss an urban legend about a videotape that curses its viewers to die in seven 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. After a false alarm phone call, Masami goes to the toilet. Tomoko witnesses the TV turn on by itself and is killed by an unseen figure.
Reiko Asakawa, Tomoko's aunt and a journalist investigating this urban legend, attends her funeral and learns that three of Tomoko's friends who watched the tape with her all died at the same time. Reiko finds an unmarked videotape in a resort cabin in Izu where the four stayed. It contains brief, seemingly unrelated scenes accompanied by screeching sounds, and ends with a shot of a well. After watching, Reiko sees an apparition and receives a phone call emitting the screeching sounds from the tape. Convinced she has been cursed, Reiko takes the tape and leaves the cabin.
Reiko enlists the help of her psychic ex-husband Ryūji Takayama. Examining a copy of the tape that Reiko made, the pair find a cryptic message spoken in an Ōshima dialect and prepare to go to Ōshima. Before departing, Reiko catches Yōichi, her son with Ryūji, watching the tape after being pressured by "Tomoko."
In Ōshima, Reiko and Ryūji learn about Shizuko Yamamura, the woman on 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 cousin Takashi, they learn through a vision that during the demonstration, Shizuko's young daughter Sadako 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. They rush back to the cabin.
Reiko and Ryūji find a sealed well in the cabin's 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. They drain the water and find Sadako's remains. Reiko's seven-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, trying to call Ryūji, hears his last moments over the phone. Guided by an apparition, Reiko realizes she has unwittingly found out how to survive the curse: copy the tape and show it to someone else within seven days. Desperate to save Yōichi, Reiko drives to her father's home to show him the tape.
Cast
Nanako Matsushima as Reiko Asakawa, a journalist who investigates her niece's death and finds the cursed video tape. Hiroyuki Sanada as Ryūji Takayama, Reiko's former husband, a former medical student turned university professor. He has a degree of sixth sense that detects supernatural auras. Rikiya Otaka as Yōichi Asakawa, Reiko's young son who also has a sixth sense like his father. Miki Nakatani as Mai Takano, Ryuji's student. Yuko Takeuchi as Tomoko Ōishi, Reiko's niece who watches the cursed video tape and is amongst its first victims. Hitomi Sato as 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. Yoichi Numata as 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 Rings 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".
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.
Jay McRoy reads the ending hopefully: if the characters therapeutically understand their conflicts, they can live on. Balmain, however, is not optimistic; she reads the replication of the video as technology spreading, virus-like, throughout Japan.
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, 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.
Production After the moderate success of the 1991 novel Ring by Koji Suzuki, Kadokawa Shoten decided to adapt it into a motion picture.
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.Meikle, Dennis (2005), The Ring Companion (London: Titan Books). The broadcast version of the 1995 film was re-edited and released on home video under a new title, Ring: Kanzenban ( "Ring: The Complete Edition"; 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).
Following his work on Ghost Actress (1996), Nakata was approached to direct Ring. According to Nakata, author Koji Suzuki had liked his previous work and specifically asked him to direct the film adaptation. Nakata deliberately adopted a restrained approach to the horror, avoiding direct depictions of the victims' deaths despite questions from the producers over whether this approach would be effective.
Nakata cited The Haunting (1963) as an important influence on the film's approach to horror. He later recalled watching Robert Wise's film at least five times before shooting Ring, particularly admiring its ability to create psychological fear without visibly showing a ghost. Nakata also acknowledged influences from Japanese supernatural traditions, including kabuki theatre and Yotsuya Kaidan.
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.
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.
Sound design was also an important part of the production. Nakata worked closely with composer Kenji Kawai and the film's sound-effects team, using numerous individual audio tracks to combine the score with environmental and technological sounds. According to Nakata, four different telephone sounds were mixed together for the film's telephone effects, while approximately 50 tracks each were used for background sound and sound effects.
Release Ring was released in Japan on January 31, 1998, where it was distributed by Toho. Upon release in Japan, Ring became the highest-grossing horror film in the country.Kermode, Mark (2011), 'Review of Ring', BFI | Sight and Sound. The film was shown at the 1999 Fantasia Film Festival where it won the first place award for Best Feature in the Asian films section.
In the Philippines, the film was given limited releases as Ring: Circle of Evil on both December 4, 2002, and January 11, 2003, to coincide with the North American remake's release on January 17.
Box office In Japan, the film earned a distribution income (rentals) of in 1998, making it one of the top ten highest-grossing Japanese films of the year. The film grossed a total Japanese box office revenue of ().
Variety stated that Rings "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. On its 1999 Hong Kong release, Ring earned (US$4.03 million) during its two-month theatrical run making it Hong Kong's highest-grossing Japanese-language film. This record was later beaten by Stand By Me Doraemon in 2015. In Taiwan, where it released in 1999, the film grossed ().
In France, the film sold 94,257 tickets, equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately (). In South Korea, 56,983 tickets were sold in the capital city of Seoul, equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately (). The film also grossed $150,893 in Chile, the United Kingdom, Russia, and New Zealand, adding up to an estimated worldwide gross revenue of approximately $19,540,286.
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, under the transliterated title Ringu.