Movies
Ringu 2 (1999, Miki Nakatani, Hitomi Satô)
Ring 2 opens with Reiko’s colleagues at the TV station concerned at her non-return to work. One begins to follow-up the story of the video curse and the interviews from across the board fill in the back story on Ring but it isn’t until Ryuji’s girlfriend, Mai Takano (MIKI NAKATANI) takes up the search that the film begins to move forward. What she discovers about Sadako and her forbears, hinted at in the original film in just a handful of lines, is now expanded upon and her proof is not just horrifying but suggests that the video can mutate and grow and begin to make appear on victim’s screens of its own accord…
Rather than relying on CGI effects and monsters in the closet to scare, the film uses the expansion from the grainy, inexplicable and mysterious images from the video, and then adds scenes in the protagonists’ heads. The original film uses special effects sparingly – just two, one of almost charming reconciliation the other jaw-droppingly sudden and genuinely scary. The sequel is equally restrained although Sadako now makes more appearances, all of them blood-chillingly effective (helped by the eerie score that runs across both films). But possibly most scary of all is that the story of the death-dealing video has long been a myth among Japanese youngsters – not that anyone’s ever seen it but they know a friend of a friend…
production details
Japan | 92 minutes | 1999
Director: Hideo Nakata
Script: Hiroshi Takahashi
cast
Miki Nakatani as Mai Takano
Hitomi Satô as Masami Kurahashi
Kyoko Fukada as Kanae Sawaguchi
Fumiyo Kohinata as Dr. Kawajiri
Kenjiro Ishimaru as Detective Omuta
Yūrei Yanagi as Okazaki
Rikiya Ôtaka as Yôichi Asakawa
Yôichi Numata as Takashi Yamamura
Masako as Shizuko Yamamura
Miwako Kaji as Kazue Yamamura
Katsumi Muramatsu as Kôichi Asakawa
Daisuke Ban as Heihachirô Ikuma
Rie Ino’o as Sadako Yamamura
Reita Serizawa as Okazaki no Dôryô – Sakuma
Shinmei Tsuji as Manshon Kanrinin
Nanako Matsushima as Reiko Asakawa
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