I have seen the full Japanese 'Ringu' trilogy (Ringu, Ringu 2, Ringu 0: Baasudei, aka Ring, Ring 2, Ring 0: Birthday), and they are great films. They are based on a Japanese horror book series - Ring, Rasen (spiral), and Loop (there is also a book with four short-stories that fills in some gaps).
The movies 'Ringu' and 'Rasen' were made and released at the same time, following the book plots, but they had different directors and a different cast - Ringu was a huge success in Japan, and the final scene is infamous, but Rasen was a big flop - bad acting, bad directing, and although it sold tickets due to the popularity of Ringu, it was crap. Because of the failure of Rasen, Ringu 2 was made - with the same director and cast as Ringu, but with a totally original story. After that, Ringu 0 was made, different director this time, but the story was based on the books again - this one was based on one of the short stories 'Lemonheart'.
The story is about the videotape mainly, in the films (there is an Urban Legend surrounding it which sparks off the story), but in truth the story is about a girl - Yamamura Sadako - with some powerful psychic abilities.
'The Ring' is a totally original story based on the original movie. It's totally americanised, with the american's idea of horror - yes,it's still scary, but it loses the silence and atmosphere of the original.
As for blood, there isn't much in Ringu, but I can't really vouch for The Ring.
I'm currently searching for english copies of the books, any ideas where I can find them in the UK?
Here's a little bit of fun - on some versions of the ringu DVD, you can watch the Japanese cursed video - and when it ends, the DVD freezes, a phone rings, and it shuts down, hehehe.
Damn - I've been trying to find a link to the video of Sadako crawling out of the well (final scene in Ringu) - thats why i keep coming back and adding stuff to this post - but I can't find it. Oh Well. <i></i>
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