The Ring (Gore Verbinski 2002) and The Ring Two (Hideo Nakata 2005)

When Hollywood decides to remake a foreign film, inevitably it reinflects story and material to suit the domestic market. Plots tend to be streamlined, ambiguities minimised, characters made less enigmatic, climactic moments heightened, downbeat resolutions softened. In particular, the film will, if possible, be tailored to fit existing generic norms. In this respect, THE RING is only partly typical: although it does perhaps lessen the ambience and tension of the original, scripted by Ehren Kruger it is in many respects a close, effective remake. The 115-minute film may be divided into four acts of roughly equal length, and the first and much of the last act substantially follow the original. It is only in the middle two acts that THE RING significantly departs from the basic narrative trajectory of RINGU.

The opening scenes are particularly close to the original. Here, too, one teenager, Becca (Rachael Bella), tells another, Katie (Amber Tamblyn), the story of a cursed videotape, whereupon Katie is supernaturally killed. The heroine Rachel (Naomi Watts), a journalist for a Seattle magazine, is again the aunt of the dead girl and learns at her funeral about the video. She begins to investigate. Like Reiko, she is led to the resort (Shelter Mountain Inn) where the teenagers watched the tape, views it herself and receives a sinister phone call (a woman's voice says, ‘Seven days’). Her face, too, is now distorted in photographs. In addition, Rachel, too, has a young son, Aidan (David Dorfman), who is psychic, and she likewise enlists the aid of the boy's father, Noah (Martin Henderson), her ex-boyfriend and a video expert. Only when Rachel starts to track down the backstory does The Ring vary the basic Ringu template. Accordingly, I will concentrate on the differences between the two movies.

After the opening scene, neither the urban legend idea nor the focus on teenage girls is really pursued. The four teenagers recorded the tape whilst at the cabin, so they were probably the first to watch it. There is no sense here of a circulating urban legend that simultaneously excites and terrifies the young people.