Way back in the olden days of the early 2000s, an interesting trend emerged. American studios started making Americanized versions of Japanese horror movies. They were simpler times. Most famous of these films were The Ring and The Grudge. But there were a couple of lesser known films that fit this mold as well like One Missed Call, and Dark Water. This week we’re looking at The Ring and it's Japanese counterpart Ringu. I find this exercise fascinating because as separate societies, Japanese people and American people tend to consume media in much different ways. Obviously there’s overlap, but in general, there are going to be some pretty remarkable differences between a Japanese film and an American film. With the Ring film in particular, the ante is upped by the fact that technically they’re based off of a Japanese novel. With shared inspiration, and wildly different approaches to that inspiration, let’s look at the Ring movies!
Summarizing both movies would take quite a lot of space for the article, and I’m more of a quality of content versus quantity of content so I’ll summarize the similar points simultaneously and point out the major differences a little later. The basic gist of the story is that our main character’s niece dies suddenly, and mysteriously while having a sleepover with a friend from school. In both cases, the main character is a woman and a news reporter. After poking around, a connection is made between the death of the niece and the death of several of the niece’s school mates. This leads to further digging, which uncovers that the teens went to a cabin for a weekend excursion and dies one week after returning. As the investigation unfolds, we start to get into our supernatural stuff. Rumors start to surface about a cursed videotape that kills those who watch it after one week. Further investigation into this supposed cursed tape lead the protagonist to find a copy and watch the tape while at the cabin. She takes it home with her to show to her ex-husband, who is a photographer in the American version, and we’ll get to the Japanese version in a minute. They analyze the video in an attempt to unlock its secrets, and uncover a sordid history surrounding the tape. In both versions, there’s scandal, coverup, and abuse, however, each version handles all of these elements just a little bit differently according to the storytelling sensibilities of their respective cultures. In the US version of the film, our heroine, Rachel Keller spends the third act of the film trying to understand the ghoulish entity that strikes from your TV. She uncovers a somewhat disturbing and tragic story of a little girl abused at the hands of her mother, a little girl desperately in need of some maternal love in her life, a somewhat sympathetic character. In the end, Rachel tracks down a well where the ghoulish girl was ‘buried’ and left to die. She has a moment with the corpse of said girl, and makes sure that her son makes a copy of the tape to show to someone else, and that’s pretty much the end of the film.
The Japanese version is extremely similar in many ways. The supernatural elements are all there, the basic premise of the story is the same, and the characters are utilized in mostly the same ways. However, this film is about as Japanese as they can get when it comes to having a US counterpart. Instead of the girl being abused at the hands of the mother, the girl is abused at the hands of her illegitimate father. Instead of the video representing the full extent of the supernatural elements in this film, we have the girl’s mom, who is psychic, our main character’s ex-husband, who is also psychic, and the video, which is a psionically culminated rage of the little girl that she imprinted on the tape at the time of her death. By the end of their investigation, the two main characters track down the well where the girl was ‘buried’, and as it turns out, it’s under a building at the campgrounds where the teens originally watched the tape. The two syphon all of the water out of the well, for some reason, there’s a moment with the corpse of the girl, and the movie more or less ends there. Of course, she has her son make a copy of the tape, and then there’s the biting moral question of, “If your life depended on screwing someone else in order to live, you’d do it, wouldn’t you?” Maybe not in those words, but the idea is the same.
Okay, so obviously these two movies were made for totally different audiences, and the fact that they were released four years apart, I feel, is actually kind of important here too. It’s not necessarily the period of time between films, but the time period during which that time elapsed that important. Film has always been evolving, and feel like the early 2000s were a pivotal time for movies in America. US films started to seek different qualities that they had only slightly earlier, especially in horror. As much as I hate to admit it, a lot of this had to do with The Sixth Sense. After that film, a lot of suspense/thriller/horror films looked to recreate that twist ending that any avid Are You Afraid of the Dark? fan saw coming a mile away. The line between mere suspense and horror started to be a little less defined as both started leaning on disturbing imagery more and more to unsettle the viewer in new ways. Contrast that with the Japanese version, which just takes all of the same elements to an over-the-top-ridiculous level. That’s just what the audience expects out their style of film. As a casual partaker of Japanese culture, I’ve noticed that that sort of hyperbolic presentation is pretty standard across the board. Things tend to be a bit wackier, and campier, and less serious. This is neither better, or worse, it just is. As a born and bred American, I tend to sway a little more towards the more serious take on the story that the US version gives, but that isn’t to say that I didn’t find the Japanese version thoroughly fascinating, and enjoyable. I will say that the US version at least gave us a visual representation of why the movie is called The Ring. I did notice that particularly important element missing from the Japanese version, but it was a nice attempt anyway. Give both of these movies a watch given the chance. Each manages to take a basic premise and use all of those elements in unique and entertaining ways. Stay tuned for next week! I’ll be doing my first ever fan request!
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