Ringu 2

I recently rewatched Ringu 2 (1999) on Tubi. The storyline picks up where the first film left off, with the cursed tape still circulating and potentially causing a mass crisis. Meanwhile, the mother and son from the first film are in hiding, and the little boy begins to develop supernatural powers. Society starts searching for the mother and son to solve the outbreak from the tape that could end mankind.

This film was directed by Hideo Nakata (Dark Water) and stars Miki Nakatani (Ringu), Hitomi Satô (Ringu), Kyoko Fukada (The Teacher), Fumiyo Kohinata (Outrage), and Rikiya Otaka (Ringu).

I'm not sure I loved the direction they took with the storyline and overall premise for this sequel. The opening refresher is well done, but the way they portrayed the widespread outbreak was just okay, and the film got bogged down there. However, the last 30 minutes, when they finally return to the well, are exceptionally well done. The corpses are excellent, and the overall conclusion is well executed. There is a lot to like here, even if it isn't as good as its predecessor.

In conclusion, Ringu 2 is a significant step down from the first film but still has enough worthwhile content to make it a must-see. I would score this a 7/10 and strongly recommend.

This movie takes place a week after the events of `Ring', making the first movie pretty which a pre-requisite for viewing (director Nakata fortunately doesn't feel the need to waste too much time on annoying exposition). We now look at those who were in contact with characters from the first movie and how they're getting on. This calls for the reprisal of most of the cast, including the lead Reiko. This time Reiko fears that her son, whom she saved in the previous flick, may be under the influence of the evil of Sadako. Guess what? She's out to stop her!

There's less tension evident in `Ring 2' than the previous, less a sense of worry and desperation. Part of this is due to the shifting of character's prominence. Another element is because this movie takes a somewhat more analytical approach to the events of the first – the police are involved, scientists are trying to understand the phenomena. While this makes sense from a realism angle, it does somewhat detract from the underlying menace of Sadoka.

Structurally the movie takes the same idea as the previous – a slow build up to a climatic event, interspersed with some moments of terror. Some of this terror now comes from a child – playing on innocence – and the child in question, Yoichi, is quite capable of being frightening in a blank-faced way. However he's just not as capable as having the greater, unknown, terror the previous movie produced – like any sequel in the genre there's the feeling of the killer slashing their way through each flick.

Nakata is fairly competent with what he has. The lighting is often muted, the camera work focused (without being intense), his actors giving grand performances… but somehow the second time it doesn't work out quite as well. This, coupled with a disappointing ending, left me somewhat disappointed. There's some good moments in it – particularly with the television images – but overall it fails to quite grab you. Still a far more intelligent fare than the gore-drenched horror that most adhere to in this genre, and you could do a lot lot worse. 6/10.

With Ryuji dead and Reiko missing, the search for the secrets of the tape becomes the mission of Rjuji's student Mai. She joins with a journalist friend of Reiko to undercover the secrets that lead to Reiko and her son. Yoichi appears to be channelling the power of Sadako and more facts become known.

Following up the famous Ring was never going to be an easy task, but this sequel is generally regarded by critics as being even better. However I felt a little let down. It was still creepy and occasionally scary but the images are now too familiar from the first film to be really unnerving and it loses a little of it's impact. Mind you – there's still plenty of scary bits or bits that just are creepy.

The plot is a lot bigger and suffers a bit as a result, however it is interesting to find out more about the legend of Sadako. The cast are all very good again – despite many of the characters being minor in the last film they still do well.

Overall this isn't as good as the original – due to both familiarity and the lack of special touches such as sound effects etc. However it still puts the Hollywood teen slashers to shame.

I watched Ringu only a few days ago and pretty much got it. With this the result was different. Mai has such a small role in the original that I almost had no idea who she was. Also, I found that this film expected you to understand stuff without even mentioning it at all, such as the fact that Sadako had manifested herself in Yoichi - it was assumed that we got it. I did get it, of course, but a hint of explanation would have been nice.

As with my previous review of the original, I can honestly say that I didn't find this instalment particularly scary. More like an over-complicated episode of The X Files. That's another trait of Japanese cinema that gets me sometimes - a film would seem OK to start, fairly straightforward, easy to get, but towards the end of the movie it gets unnecessarily complicated. Luckily there wasn't too much of that here, but there was still a bit of it. If I were to continue that rant a little,I would voice my annoyance at the barrage of unfinished important sentences that characters tend to speak. OK, so maybe we should be able to finish them ourselves, but sometimes it's just too obscure. For example, sentences along the lines of "That mean's he's...", or "Could he be...". No conclusion to the sentence. Nothing. Grrr! Anyway, rant over, overall I thought this was watchable, though not as good or coherent as the original. Despite the ranting, I still love Japanese cinema (what little experience I have of it).

I'm away to watch Ringu 0. Let's see how well it does.

A great sequel to Ringu (one of the best horror films EVER), it continues from where it left off and goes on the explain a lot of things from Ringu, but if you haven't seen the original you'll probably be as confused as hell!

The film follows Mai, Ryujii's student from the first film, and her studies on the tape, trying to find out what happened to him. She realises Yoichi, his and Reiko's son is psychic like Sadoko and tries to stop him becoming like her and goes back to where Sadako was born to find out more about her and her mother.

It has quite a few scary bits, at points I felt more scared than during Ringu, and the last 20 minutes or so a very tense. Sadako is of course as creepy as ever, and there's plenty to make you jump. A worthy sequel :)

Go watch Ring 0 now!