Ring (1998)

Original title

リング

Directed by

Hideo Nakata

Genre

fantasy film, horror film, thriller film, Japanese horror, supernatural film, ghost film

Country

Japan

Runtime

1h 35m

Rated

NR

Rating

7.1 of 10 from 1,681 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A reporter investigates a cursed videotape that kills anyone who watches it within seven days. She races against time to find a way to break the curse before her own deadline.

tensecreepyslow-burnatmosphericominoussuspensefulsombereerie

What happens

Ring (Japanese: リング, Hepburn: Ringu) 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. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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• Ring 2 (1999)
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