(the) ring

both are rich w/ atmosphere but i was swayed more by the japanese film... it is sedate, yes, but this is good. the soundtrack is also better, sparser, all screeches and, well.. rings (with some overblown moments like when she sees herself photographed - PSHSH#@$(@$&#@$@!!!!!).

ring 0 is only watchable when it gets silly in the final 3rd.

I really lost patience with critics who decided the American remake was some kind of travesty. WTF?

Oh and Naomi Watts is so, so, so, so lovely in this film.

The US version was a better piece of work and as such lacked the wtf atmosphere of the original. Never liked the psychic kid subplot anyway.

saying naomi watts is "so so lovely" is exactly the kind of creepier-still fanbase thing they were trying to achieve i see now

watts' empathies with her investigations i can see in theory but didn't really overwhelm me while i was watching it

Yeah, that was just so lame -- why even bother doing much investigation into the tape if he could just intuit what happened anyway?

Also, I liked how the female reporter had more to do in the American version. In the Japanese version she came off as a bit of a dimbo who deferred to her ex to do all of the work and figure out everything. So passive it made you wonder how she could even be a journalist.

If you mean to suggest that producers cast attractive and charismatic actors in the hopes that audiences will fall for them, yay, here's your prize. Although please explain how my responding in the expected manner is creepy.

convinced

I'm not trying to convince anyone, I just liked the American version better.

as i say above i thought her special milky nacreous kind of, um, loveliness was a cheap shot of approximating the atmos of the original. but it's not my real prob with the film anyway

ok 'convinced' was wrong yeah. you nah mean tho

adj 1: consisting of or resembling mother-of-pearl 2: having a play of lustrous rainbow-like colors; "an iridescent oil slick"; "nacreous (or pearlescent) clouds looking like mother-of-pearl"; "a milky opalescent (or opaline) luster" [syn: iridescent, opalescent, opaline, pearlescent]

The most interesting thing about The Ring (2002, PG-13) is that it was based on another movie, a smash hit called Ringu (1998, not rated). If you don’t remember Ringu, it’s probably because you don’t live in Japan, where it became the top-grossing horror film of all time (it’s already spawned a sequel and a prequel). Thanks to the mild success of the Hollywood version, the Japanese original is also now available here.
If you don’t have time for both, stick with Ringu. Director Hideo Nakata’s creepy ghost story is hardly perfect, but it is unpredictable and eerie, and it has a few magnificent freak-out moments. A reporter, Reiko (Nanako Matsushima), is investigating urban legends about people who die one week after they watch a haunted videotape. When she realizes her niece may have been a victim, she tracks down a copy of the tape -- which, this being a horror movie, she immediately watches. That sets the clock running, as Reiko scrambles to solve the mystery within seven days. She recruits her psychic ex-husband Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada) after showing him the video (hey, he’s an ex), and they’re soon snooping around desolate volcanic islands and abandoned stone wells. There’s abundant incoherence of the kind you can get away with only in a movie full of vague supernatural forces, but Reiko and Ryuji are a likable detective duo and Nakata keeps changing the story’s rhythm so that you’re never sure what’s coming.
In The Ring, on the other hand, studio hack Gore Verbinski can’t leave well enough alone. Although the movie follows the general outline of Ringu, everything about it is broader and slicker. The scares are more graphic and more telegraphed, and the whole tone has shifted from spooky fun to grim foreboding. It’s drenched in the kind of gray-green lighting that signifies “art” (or maybe just Seattle) in nu-metal videos. Where Nakata makes everyday settings unsettling by playing on their ordinariness, Verbinski’s grimy warehouses and disheveled cabins are spookhouse cliches. The reporter is played by a mordant Naomi Watts, showing none of the verve she brought to Mulholland Drive. Really, there’s not a pleasant character in the whole movie. They’re all pallid, doughy and bitter. The film insists on spelling out a lot of what was left implied in Ringu – not an improvement, considering that plot is hardly Ringu’s strong point. Watching The Ring after seeing Ringu is like listening to someone explain the punchline of a joke.

I think the best thing about the Japanese version of Ring is how low-key and mundane the near-end scene in the well is. You are expecting mucho tension and instead get this long, drawn out section of quiet desperation. Nicely played.

I've not seen the Yank attempt, but from what I've been told there is a point made that if you break the curse if you make a COPY of the tape. I always thought from the Japanese version that you only had to SHOW it to someone else to escape bizzaro TV death. . . .

Ptee articulates above, what my brane was struggling with re: the neverending spread thing not working in the Japanese version. I haven't seen the US remake, but Naomi Watts will never be as lovely as she was in a wheelchair, dating Nick the dull policeman in Home & Away.

i'm the sort who generally hates 'hollywood remakes' out of hand but the ring really impresses, i think.

as an aside, my favourite naomi watts was janet odgers in flirting. i hope gilby bagged her.