Ringu
[DVD Info]

Two girls, Tomoko (Yuko Takeuchi) and Masami (Hitomi Sato), are talking in their room and they start to talk about this video rumor. The rumor was that a little boy went to a cabin on vacation with his family. He wanted to tape his favorite show, so he programmed the VCR to tape it and he went off to play. When he came back...there was nothing on the video...except this weird woman and a well saying "you're going to die." After he watched the video the phone rang...but no one was there. Seven days later he died. It turns out that Tomoko and three of her friends went to a cabin and they saw the video. Today was her 7th day of seeing the video. When Masami came out of the bathroom Tomoko was dead.

Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) is a reporter for the newspaper. Lately she's been working on a story about a local rumor about a videotape that kills people. When she finds out that her cousin that recently died, Tomoko, had watched this rumored videotape...she starts to investigate. She heads to the cabin in which Tomoko and her three friends stayed at and finds the video and watches it. Frightened for her life she shows it to her ex-husband, Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada), to fix the curse. Now they only have 7 days to break the curse. But how? What will Reiko do when her son watches the video?

Slapping a woman and then shaking her violently is a good persuading technique.

Breaking and entering is fine if you have a good reason...like trying to find a corpse.

"My mom's fat...my dad's fat...I must be fat too!" ~Little boy.

One thing that is lame about scary movies is that they're always dark. It sets the mood of course but you can't see what's going on 50% of the time! It's less scary when you're struggling to see what's on screen instead of just watching it.

Her ex-husband was such a jerk! He was always being mean to her and telling her he wished they had never had a child together. What a lame-o...he got his uppin's comin' though. Oh yes...he did.

This is the original Japanese version of The Ring that came out in the states. "Ringu" was a lot less gory and based itself more on psychological thrills then shock value (unfortunately...when you see shock value for most of your life...you become desensitized to psychological stuff). It also explained a whole lot more. In the American version they don't even explain how the video came into existence and this one tells you in the first 5 minutes (but the comic version it took the whole comic to figure it out). Also...Reiko's husband Ryuji was psychic in this version. Although it wasn't as scary, it did have CREEPIER parts to it (like her missing finger nails) but anyone who enjoys movies that give you jolts of adrenaline and keep you terrified, see the American version (which gave me nightmares and made me sleep with my light on for a few nights!) Because of this, the jury gives this flick:

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