Ring 0: Birthday

After the original Ringu, there were many people who tried to ride the horror wave. Not much unlike the known Hollywood tradition, the Japanese film industry made many horror movies in the same vein, as is this prequel to the original Ringu.

This is one of the better movies to come out of the many copy-cats that followed the success of Ringu. It does tell you the story of the girl that lead her to become what she is (or was) in the Ringu movie, when you saw her. So if you've watched Ringu, you do know where this movie is going. Still it is more than interesting and engaging to see the journey of her! I don't know how it would feel if you'd watch this movie before Ringu, but one thing is for sure, if you like Ringu, you should watch this one too! It stays true to the original premise!

In Ring O, which takes place 30 years before the events of Ringu, we are introduced to Sadako Yamamura, a painfully shy young girl who is literally torn in two by her mysterious heritage. Sadako, haunted by frightening visions of ghosts and bloody omens of the future, is a tense and silent girl with an ethereal beauty. She has found happiness in a local drama troupe, despite the fact that few of her fellow actors like her - Sadako is too quiet, a little creepy, and always seems to have something "standing behind her" - something that no one can quite see. The cast of an upcoming play all begin to have similar dreams in which an old house, a forest by the sea and a crumbling well all make an appearance. When the star of the play dies unexpectedly, and Sadako is given her role, suspicion mounts. Odd occurrences plague the set, a news reporter with a secret agenda begins to investigate Sadako and Sadako herself falls in love with a handsome sound engineer named Toyama, the only one who believes that Sadako is innocent. But if she is, then what is causing the poltergeist activity in the theater? What is the source of the strange, eerie sound that everyone can hear? And whose voice said "You will die" on a recording made at the time of a young woman's death?

This is a strong entry in the Ringu series, more of a psychological drama than anything else. Sadako, like Carrie White, is a girl with no self-esteem, wandering through the film in dumpy clothes with her hair in her face. She is truly a good, sweet girl who is simply pushed too far at last. There are some creepy moments scattered through the film featuring grainy dream sequences, stricken corpses and a very creepy shot of Sadako's insane mother during a flashback. There's also a great climax featuring Sadako as we all remember her - hair in her face and clad in a long white dress - literally jumping into view and then creeping up on her two victims in a scene that was clearly shot backwards and then run forwards, giving her movements a hideous jerkiness. Yukie Nakama is very good as Sadako, giving us a tragic heroine who is good and pure and possesses the power to heal the sick. Your sympathy will lie with Sadako, even as her dark past is revealed. The good Sadako suffers unbearably and you will suffer with her, right up to the chilling, but inevitable, ending.

This is a must see for Ring fans. Very highly recommended.

Shortly after an oddly quiet young woman, Sadako Yamamura (Yukie Nakama), joins a drama troupe, strange events, including deaths with suspicious circumstances, start occurring. Is Sadako somehow connected to these events? And what does it have to do with a reporter investigating a years-old tragedy at a psychic demonstration?

Series Note: There are many different films, television series, books, comic books, etc. based on the "Ring Universe", and it's very complicated trying to sort them out. The Japanese films known as "Ring" or "Ringu" can be numbered 0 (this one), 1 (Ringu, 1998) and 2 (Ringu 2, 1999), and function well as a self-contained story. This film, Ring 0: Birthday is a prequel. I prefer watching it first, but if you want more mystery in the other films, watch them in their release order: Ringu, Ringu 2, then Ringu 0. Note that there is also a Japanese film named Rasen (aka Spiral, 1998) which was meant to be a "Ring 2", but that was later superseded with the 1999 Ringu 2. Rasen is supposedly closer to the second Ring novel, but 1999's Ringu 2 is seen as more or less the "official" Ringu sequel.

There is an infamous mock commercial from the early days of "Saturday Night Live" (1975) about a product named "Shimmer". Shimmer was notable for being both a floor wax and a dessert topping. Ring 0 has Sadako as a Shimmer-like entity. Only, instead of being just two kinds of things, she's six--a telekinetic, a psychic, a precognizant, a ghost, a psychic healer, and a physical manifestation of a split personality. The film overall has a Shimmer-like quality, too. It's both a horror film and a slow, realistic drama with romance overtones. The horror stuff generally works, although Sadako would have benefited from not having so many functions. The more serious dramatic sections, which take up almost an hour of this 90-minute film, are not quite as successful.

The script, by Hiroshi Takahashi, from a story by Ring novelist Koji Suzuki, is admirable on an artistic level. Takahashi is fond of parallelism, setting up the drama troupe's rehearsals and performance as an innocuous veil that often matches more sinister events beneath the surface. He frequently changes our perspective so that we see a stage performer scream, say, at the same time someone offstage should be screaming. These kinds of parallels can be found throughout the film.

The problem is that director Norio Tsuruta just cannot get much momentum going with the material. The dramatic rehearsals and backstage bickering that take up a large percentage of screen-time just aren't that eventful or exciting. There are glimpses, through Sadako or around her, of a more intriguing world, but they're often little more than "flashes" that might cause us to do a double take. Takahashi and Tsuruta work hard to establish a romance subplot involving a love triangle (or two), but this can barely get off the ground. It often feels superfluous.

The best material featuring Sadako in the earlier part of the film resembles something of a cross between a Hitchcockian thriller and Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976). But those are overly generous comparisons, since at least the first hour of Ring 0 has little of the suspense, style or directorial panache of either.

I would have preferred a stronger focus on Shoko Miyaji (Yoshiko Tanaka), the reporter who is trying to investigate the psychic demonstration tragedy. Her scenes, which tend to have the flavor of a police procedural with slight horror twinges, are entertaining, and a larger focus on her would have broken up play rehearsal scenes better. It would have also given the character more weight for the climax, which would have given the ending even greater impact.

As it stands, the last half hour is still the best part. We finally unravel much of the mystery behind Sadako (although there are a lot of questions that could still be answered), and gain insight into some of the events and comments in the first two-thirds of the film, which otherwise can seem cryptic (it pays to rewatch the first hour after the film is over--I enjoyed it more the second time).

There are a number of events during the climax that are breathtaking in their brutality, all nicely scripted and directed. One of these, when two characters are enigmatically killed off-screen, is a rare example of an "attack scene" where I agree that what you're not shown can be more effective than what you are shown. We get to see the event leading right up to the death, and we see the bloody aftermath. Filming how it happened would have drained much of its mystique. Another outstanding development in the climax is rooted in the relationship between two characters, and works so well because of strong cultural taboos.

While it's probably my least favorite Ring-related film, Ring 0 is worth viewing because of its place in the series and the excellent climax.

After the disappointment of a still decent "Ring 2", "Ring 0 : Birthday" is a return to form. Yukie Nakamo does a wonderful job of portraying the tragic final days of Sadako's attempt at a normal life. The sweet, innocent side of her was never suspected when I first glimpsed the malevolent presence of Sadako in the first installment. Yukie is very moving in her portrayal and evokes sympathy and empathy for the character. Similarily, Daisuke Ban gives a opens up the character of Dr Ikuma from the glimpses we've seen in previous installments. Here we see a tortured and resigned man who genuinely loves Sadako as a daughter, but can't escape from the knowledge of how dangerous she is and the steps he may have to take to prevent her harming others.

Despite the main love story and drama of Sadako's attempt at a normal life, there are still plenty of creepy moments and supernatural happenings. The scenes with the school teacher relating her experiences of teaching a young Sadako are genuinely intriguing and eerie. Indeed the story of the kids swimming in the sea and Sadako's prediction of their fate, is truly gripping, despite nothing actually being shown. The excitng scenes in the woods and cabin show how deadly Sadako can be when her evil side has control. The weird appearance and way of walking from the first "Ring" is seen again here and there's some great bonesnapping moments when Sadako hunts down her final prey. These scenes and the conclusion give "Ring 0 : Birthday" the standout sequences that "Ring 2" never quite managed to sustain from the original film.

Some of the plot points do bear a resemblance to "Carrie" but the film handles them in a different way. The story, although slow paced is always enthralling (a hallmark of the "Ring" series to date) and it seems poor Sadako never really had a chance from what awaited her. Aligned against her are: an inability to control the dark powers of her alter ego, a creepy director who learns of her secret and wishes to use her, a reporter with a grudge and a suspicious and unfriendly acting troupe who never seem to have made any real attempt at welcoming the shy, withdrawn girl into their fold. Mob paranoia and fear contribute to Sadako's fate and make her the malevolent presence she is today. As the film reaches it's conclusion, you can't help but wish that things could end differently for the unfortunate lovers but anyone who's seen the previous installments, knows that there's only one place this prequel can end. The last few minutes of the film are heartbreaking and the film's end credit song beautifully encapsulates the finality of Sadako's backstory.

Don't expect too many absolute answers here though. "Ring 0 : Birthday" maintains the mystery and ambiguity of the first two films and once again, imagination is a required element from the viewer. If you enjoyed the previous films and want to see more of Sadako, this film will give you quite a thrill ride. Whether it's poignant doomed love story, another part of the Ring puzzle or an eerie and haunting Japanese ghost story, "Ring 0 : Birthday" is a winner on every level.

Wonderful? Great? Excellent? I read with disbelief some of the reviews here. Was I watching a different movie? Of the three Ringu movies, this one was definitely the weakest link. The problem was, I couldn't quite decide whether Ringu 0 was a horror movie, or a throwback to 1970s Asian romance movies. Specifically Taiwanese ones, where the female half of a romance usually ended up either blind, stricken with some incurable disease, or dead, and there were usually an evil parent, step-parent, in-law, or rival in the background. Ringu 0 had an incomprehensible plot, and was mostly melodrama at its worst. Where were the scares that defined Ringu and Ringu 2? A repeat of spooky scenes from the first two movies (e.g. mad mother staring into the mirror, bone-cracking walk/crawl, etc.) do not count. There were simply no original scary scenes here. Plus, what was that nonsense about Sadako splitting into two? Aieee!! What works well in Japanese horror manga (for example, the excellent "Tomei" series about a teenage girl who cannot die despite being murdered repeatedly because her body parts simply regenerate into separate identical persons) simply do not work well on screen. I wished the producers had stopped at Ringu 2. Sigh...