The Ring

Review by Clint Morris

In 1988, Japanese filmmaker Hideo Nakata released what some hail as "one of the scariest films of all time" – Ringu, or Ring as it is translated.

Based on a series of novels by Koji Suzuki, the gothic magnum opus became a cult phenomenon, leading the way for a string of Japanese copycat films and a potential new genre for the western world to tap into.

When it was announced Hollywood would be remaking The Ring, fans of the loved original were storming. After all, how could Hollywood possibly recapture the utter terror, the sheer initiative of that momentary Japanese classic?

I don’t know how they did it... But they did.

In essence, Hollywood’s version of The Ring follows the same storyline as the original film. A videotape filled with lurid images turns up in arbitrary locations, and whomever pops it into their player and watches... Will die seven days later - or so says the proceeding phone call that comes directly after viewing the tape.

A journalist, naturally sceptical of the tale, begins to suspect some truth behind the tale, especially when four local teenagers meet mystifying deaths, exactly one week after they discovered the tape.

She gets hold of the said tape, watches it and, inescapably, is well versed that now she too only has seven days until her ruin. With the assistance of an equally inquisitive comrade, she’s now racing against the clock to disentangle the truth behind the terrifying future she's facing.

Director Gore Verbinski (The Mexican) has crafted a marvellous reconstruction here. Remakes are usually a risky business, because it's very rare for one to rise above the energy and uniqueness of it's predecessor (and, frankly, some films just don’t need remaking).

But Verbinski and screenwriter Ehren Kruger (Scream 3) have taken an unsullied approach to existing material – letting their Ring shine on its own.

While the essential plot remains reasonably the same, they've thrown in some terrific new twists to their bewildering mystery, the outcome and answers to the video's existence itself is also handled definitely from the original Japanese film. While some of these new touches could have ruined the film – they've been well implemented, adding nothing but a splotch of extra apprehension.

What's so terrifying about this film and its 1988 predecessor is that they are genuinely original. They're treated so dexterously, so benevolently – that every creak, every sound, every mutated mug in the film – comes as an amplified fright.

Coupled with some knockout performances by ex-Pat Australian and New Zealand actors Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson – and you easily have one of the finest thrillers of the year.

It mightn't have needed to be remade – in fact it didn't – but if removing some subtitles and bringing in some Hollywood types introduces a few more people to a justly narrative yarn, then that could only be a good thing.

4 out of 5

The Ring
Australian release: Thursday November 14
Cast: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, Brian Cox, David Dorfman, Daveigh Chase, Lindsay Frost, Amber Tamblyn, Rachael Bella.
Director: Gore Verbinski.
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