Ring (1995 TV Movie) User Reviews

Putting on the first ring.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 18 October 2018]

When reading up about J-Horror,I've always noticed that Ring/Ringu (1998) is credited with starting a new wave of J-Horror,and of joining Scream (1996),as the films which revived the Horror genre after the low-point it had hit in mid-90's cinema. Deciding this October to view a number of J-Horror,I read up on Ringu,and was surprised to find out,that like Takashi Miike's two very good straight to video debuts, Ringu had started as a small TV movie,which led to me putting the first ring on.

View on the film:

Done as a TV movie, director Chisui Takigawa keeps the gore restrained, but Takigawa and cinematographer Kazumi Iwata surprisingly dip into the Pinku genre for some sleaze,with Sadako (who looks like an angelic adult, and does not have the ghostly, long black hair and strange movements Sadako would become famous for) spending most of the film naked. Shot on video, the flatness of the image and nature fuzz from the format actually works for the flick, due to it creating an appearance of the film having been passed along on tape (this is helped by the outdoor scenes clearly being filmed secretly in real city centres.)

Playing the tape, Takigawa stages Sadako's murders from an empathetic side, with Takigawa's close-ups not being focused on gore, but the embrace and exchange of words between Sadako and her next victim. The first adaptation of a Koji Suzuki novel, the screenplay by Jôji Iida and Taizô Soshigaya builds J-Horror dread towards the next sighting of Sadako with a slick mystery of reporter Kazuyuki Asakawa trying to solve the origin of the images on the video before he is to be killed, and uncovering Sadako's family life on the way. Whilst the edge is dented by a Telenovela side of melodrama, the writers always keep the seven down countdown as the main focus of Asakawa, as Sadako opens the ring for the first time.

First ring movie adaptation

[RobZombi · 7/10 · 20 February 2022]

The first film adaptation of the Ring... years before Hideo Nakata's Ring. For a TV adaptation, it has a very successful atmosphere, although it sticks closer to the novel than Hideo Nakata. The presentation of the cursed video turned out pretty well, an attempt was made to present this scene 1:1 from the book, which was also great.

Fascinating first version of Ring

[Red-Barracuda · 7/10 · 15 February 2022]

This is the original version of Ring, which played as a TV movie in the mid 90's. It compares reasonably closely to the film adaption but also includes elements of Ring 0. It is seemingly the most faithful to the original novel (yeah, there was a book that led to this franchise!). Oddly, given the success of the theatrical movies, it has never been released on home video since 1996. Given the subject matter, perhaps this is strangely apt...

Its an all round good movie, that should definitely be of interest of those who like the later films. It does explain more and Sadako is more humanised, like she was in Ring 0. Sensibly, this was reigned back for the first movie adaption, ensuring that there was much more mystery to proceedings. Also, the method of Sadako's revenge hasn't quite been perfected in this one and is a bit different here. Still, this is a fascinating early entry in the J-horror sub-genre and makes for a fine addition to this series.

Only for big fans

[tkuhns · 22 June 2004]

This film was produced by and originally shown on Fuji TV in Japan. Nevertheless, expect a bit of nudity (five scenes in all) and an attempted rape.

For a TV movie, this is surprisingly well filmed. People who are familiar with the 1998 theatrical film will follow the plot just fine. It's essentially the same, with some minor differences (Sadako's back story is different and the reporter is a male, for example).

I live in Japan, and this is the first "Ring" movie that most of my Japanese friends saw. Many of them claim it is scarier than the theatrical remake, but I cannot concur. The warped photos, videotape, ending, and generally eerie feel of the Japanese theatrical version make it far superior.

Pretty much what I expected

[lazarillo · 28 September 2014]

This is an earlier TV version of the seminal Japanese film "Ringu", which was later remade in both America and in Korea and spawned plenty of sequels in all three countries. It is basically the same story as the later "Ringu" film except the female reporter and her child has been replaced by a childless male reporter, and his partner is now a middle-aged college professor, who takes time out from banging his nubile female students to help his younger friend deal with the cursed videotape. This is not as good as "Ringu" or the first American reboot "The Ring", but it is an entertaining enough film that only recently became available with "fansub" English subtitles.

The only thing new this really brings to the table is some "pink" (sex) elements that the later films didn't have. Besides, the lecherous professor, you have one young couple who die while having graphic sex (a scene that includes a surprising flash of not entirely pixillated female pubic hair--I expect the Japanese censors hung the editor upside down and beat him on the soles of his feet). The nude/sex scenes don't really add to the movie, but they don't really distract from it either. I did find some of them hilariously exploitative, like the first scene where the protagonist's ill-fated niece, who here is a lone teenage girl rather than a pair of them, runs into the bathroom for some reason only to drop dead in the shower, which then turns on for no other apparent motive than to get her t-shirt wet and display her breasts. (This is obviously a little more low-rent affair than the later Hideo Nakata film. . .). The biggest changes in the film meanwhile are to the evil "Sadako" character who, instead of being a child, in this movie is a sexy and oft-naked young woman (once again, for obvious exploitation reasons).

Still, as a fan of both "Ring"-type movies and Japanese "pinku eiga", I couldn't very well pass this up. It's pretty much what I expected overall.