I wonder how many people have watched the original Japanese version of The Ring (entitled Ringu, if I am not mistaken).
I think that we viewers here in the Philippines, being so close to Japan, were quite lucky that we got to see the original Japanese version of the movie before the Hollywood version screened here. And almost everyone agreed: the Hollywood version simply does not compare to the Japanese original.
Note: from hereon I will refer to the original Japanese version as Ringu, and to the American version as The Ring.
I saw both versions, both at the cinema, and with the same people: my best friends. Since Ringu came out before The Ring, we watched the Japanese version first, hoping to use it as a ’’point of comparison’’ when we finally saw the American version. And when we finally did get to watch The Ring, we realized that it was almost laughable in comparison to Ringu.
And this what I have come to believe: the Japanese are better at making horror films than Americans.
A look at the different film making styles may perhaps explain for that. Japanese culture is dominated by subtlety and the idea that ’’less is more’’ - the Zen mentality, if I may use the term. But when these ideas are applied to horror films, they make for a very potent combination.
Ringu hardly has any music at all. The entire movie, the only sounds one hears are background sounds like footsteps, or the rustling of the wind through the leaves of a tree...or the shuffling sound of Sadako (Samara in the The Ring) dragging her body across the floor.
The lack of any background music only emphasizes whatever other sounds are present, and thus increases the fright experience, and the emphasis makes for a lot of jerk-in-your-seat moments when something unexpected happens. Also, since there is no ’’swell’’ in the music to announce that something is about to happen, when something does happen it is unexpected, and thus all the more frightening.
This is something that many American horror film-makers have yet to learn. An American horror movie often involves having some form of creepy music slowly swelling and building up, and then hitting a crescendo at the same time that something scary happens. However, for horror movie veterans, it creates predictability, which means that these people can brace themselves for what is about to happen - and not get scared at all.
Another interesting aspect of Ringu was the way it portrayed Sadako. There was no attempt to ’’humanize’’ her, like what was done with Samara in The Ring. People who watch Ringu do not feel a lot of pity for Sadako for most of the movie, and even in the end, there is no sense of empathy for her or for her plight. She is simply there: a force that kills, and one that cannot be explained. It is the fact that she cannot be explained that adds to the fright factor.
Samara of The Ring, on the other hand, is a character that most viewers can perhaps empathize with. We get snatches of her life while she was in the mental hospital, and the viewer pities her, pities the fact that this is a child who should be out there running and playing and laughing. As for Sadako, the snatches that the viewer gets of her while watching Ringu involve her getting knocked over the head and pushed into the well, and the abuse of her and her mother’s psychic powers. The viewer can empathize with that, true, but not in the same way that they would empathize with Samara.
The difference between Sadako and Samara goes all the way down to how they are presented in the movie. The Ring shows Samara as a child - one that the viewer might, had the circumstances been normal, have seen running in their neigbor’s garden. With Sadako, it is an entirely different story. She is portrayed as having the body of a child, thus one assumes that she is one, but there is something about her that gives off the feeling of the undead, that this is an evil spirit in the possession of the body of a dead girl.
While the premise of both movies is the same, the presentation and treatment of that premise are worlds apart. Ringu was, in my opinion, more effective in comparison to The Ring. In fact, there have been two or three Japanese sequels to the original, including a prequel that explains Sadako’s origins.
Watch Ringu instead of The Ring. I am sure that you will not regret it.