Review – Ringu

I expect that at least in the United States this movie isn’t as well-known as the English language version, The Ring, which was based on this Japanese original. And in many ways that’s a darn shame, because even with subtitles this is an entertaining movie. In fact, I suspect that if you took the original and the remake and combined the best elements of each, you’d get a genuinely fine horror movie. You could take the characters and more logical plot from this outing, mix it in with the superior production values and effects from the American go-around, and end up with a respectable piece of film-making. However, this one’s good enough to stand on its own, even with its cheap production values and other weaknesses (including an excessive reliance on ESP and other unwelcome mumbo jumbo). If you have to choose between the two, flip a coin. But if you can, see them both and try to imagine them working together. Mildly amusing