Ringu and The Ring

Sam Iles

Ringu and The Ring

Ringu (1998) was directed by Hideo Nakata and was produced by Masato Hara (executive producer) Ichise Makato (associate producer) Tatsuya Isomura (line producer) Shinya Kawai (producer) Takenori Sento (producer)

The Ring (2002) was directed by Gore Verbinski (“The Mexican,” “Mouse Hunt”) and produced by Walter F. Parkes (“Gladiator,” “Men in Black 2”) and Laurie MacDonald (“Gladiator,” “Men in Black 2”).

The ring and ringu are about a young girl who is pushed down a well by one of her parents and she is stuck down there for seven days and then dies. To take revenge on everyone who has been horrible to her she creates a tape that seven days after you watch it you die. A journalist’s niece dies after watching the tape and the journalist tries to find out what happens. She watches the tape and gets her old boyfriend to watch it and help her find out how to lift the curse. They think they have done it when they find the body of the girl but the man still dies. Then she finds that you have to copy the tape and show it to someone so you live. The story does vary slightly between the 2 films.

Although the two films are set in a different country both places are reasonably the same. They are both big cities and have kind of the same type of buildings and the same amount of people. Even though they are in the same sort of environment I think that it seems better set in Japan. This may be because it is a foreign country, which would make it scarier and also it is just feels like it would be more likely to happen there because it is a more mysterious. I think that as Verbinski could have filmed it in Japan and it would have been better but then really they would need Japanese actors and so would not have been able to have as many stars in. If Verbinski had filmed it in Japan it would have added a slight mystery to the whole thing I think this may be why some people prefer the Japanese version. This could have also been a way just to Americanise the whole film or because many people are racist against the Chinese and Japanese.

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The media are the most important group in the whole film. This is because they are the main reason that Sadaco turns evil in Ringu and partly in the ring and in both films they are the main good force and find out how to stop the tape. In the film The Ring I think that Verbinski has tried to make the media more of a good force in the film rather than showing them as split as equally good and bad, which is what Hideo Nakata has done in Ringu. This is shown by the fact that in the Ringu the media are evil to Sadaco’s mum, which causes Sadaco to kill one of them and her mum to commit suicide this could have been of the reasons that her dad pushed her down a well. But in The Ring they don’t show this happening and are just shown that the parents are ashamed of her and keep her in a room above a barn alone and her mum pushes her down a well because they are so ashamed of her. In The Ring I think the media are just represented as good Even though the tape itself is a form of media. In Ringu I think that the media are represented as good and evil because they stop the tape but also are part the reason it started. The main reason for this is probably that in America the media are the most important thing they control the views of the entire population of America so he dose not want them to be shown as a bad force.

In The Ring and Ringu children are represented as both good and evil. The children at the begging of both of the films are represented as good and so are Rachel and Reco children, but Sadaco is evil. They are also in both films represented as powerful and victims. Sadaco is powerful because she can kill people just by thinking it but she is also a victim of her dad in Ringu and her mum in The Ring because they push her down a well were she dies. The children of Rachel and Reco are represented as neither powerful or victims because they are not really powerful and are not victims but they are venerable because Sadaco tells them things to do like in The Ring she makes him drawing some pictures and also gives him a nose bleed. I think for some reason in The Ring the children are shown as more vulnerable than in Ringu because they show the girl who has gone mad in the mental home and also the boy seems more vulnerable to Sadaco.

In The Ring all of the women are good apart from Sadaco’s mum who pushes her down a well were she dies (Even though Sadaco is evil I think that she is not really a woman but just a girl). But in Ringu there are no evil women as it is the dad who pushes her down the well in this film instead of the mum. This might be because the Japanese feel differently about the representation of women and feel they cannot be shown as evil. Or might just be another way for Verbinski to americanise the story. He might be trying to make it so the stories of the two films aren’t the same or to make it more like an American film. In The Ring none of the women are victims and all of them are powerful. This could be another way of americanising the film but it might just be the best way Verbinski thought to make the film. In Ringu most of the women are powerful except for sadaco’s mum who commits suicide because of the journalists although she could have been powerful because she can read minds and had different powers.

The men in The Ring are represented as victims. All the main characters that are men all die Sadaco’s dad and the Noah the media person. But in Ringu the men are both victims and powerful. Sadaco’s dad is powerful in Ringu because he is the one who pushes her down the well, which means he has control after her life. Reco’s old boyfriend is a victim because he dies after watching the video. The men in The Ring are also both good and evil Noah is good because he is trying to help stop the tape but Sadaco’s dad is evil because he pushes her down a well and he keeps her by her self in a shed. In Ringu the men are also represented as good and evil Reco’s old boyfriend is good because he is also helping to try and stop the tape but all of the media who make Sadaco’s mum commit suicide are men and they are evil.

I think that remaking Ringu, Verbinski has not attempted to americanise the story of the ring but he has just made it so that more people can understand the story of the ring. He may have made it more American but this might just be to attract a bigger audience because people would rather watch a video in thief own language and in The Ring the story is slightly more clear. Verbinski fills in some of the gaps in Ringu such as why she uses the TV to kill people (because a TV was all she had when she was locked in the barn alone). In The Ring the representation of the media, men, children and women are mostly the same apart from a few differences, which are because of the way he has changed the story. I think in remaking the film he has made it so lots more people can see the story. As they have brought the story off them this will mean they can put more money into making more films and after the remake I bet they sold more copies of Ringu.

I think I prefer The Ring best out of the two films. This is because it fills in more of the story and after you watch it you aren’t thinking why did she do that? Or what happened before this? Also I understood The Ring better because it was in English this was probably the reason I preferred it the most.

By Sam Iles