Hello.

I watched Rasen (the degraded sequel to ringu). It was really good, one of the best films I have ever seen.

For the acting - it could be a bit wooden at times, but mostly good - possibly average.

The storyline follows on from Ringu, where Dr. Ando meets Mei Takano, and they carry on Asakawa's search about the cursed videotape. It has a real suspense factor, and the soundtrack is the best one I have ever heard - especially at the end.

There are also some shocking twists, which I'm not going to reveal.

Sadly, lots of the crew from Ringu (1998) never returned for Rasen. Lots of people also stayed away from it, due to the fact that 'Ring' was not in it's title. Baically, it could be told as the Unknown Sequel - which was totally washed away when the offical Ring 2 came out.

9/10

Browsing the board. Found an ancient thread I felt like reviving.

This is the original sequel to Ringu, but when it tanked in Japan, the company made Ringu 2. Some like this movie, and some hate it for a variety of reasons. Most of the haters don't like it because it is barely the same genre of movie that Ringu is; rather than supernatural horror, this film is more of a scienific thriller, and believe me, that's a big jump.

Instead of creepy scary Sadako, Rasen has creepy sexy Sadako, whose spirit visits the main character, Dr. Ando, after he watches the cursed videotape and apparently wants to have sex with him. He and his science buddies are interested in finding a scientific explanation for how the tape kill people, and through finding a copy of the tape and a journal left by Reiko from Ringu, they are able to reconstruct the first film and move on to their studies. Dr. Ando believes his mission is to destroy the tape so no one else dies, and also to give him an opportunity to kill himself, since he is depressed over the loss of his son. It was a nice start with some creepy moments.

Some consider this to be a big spoiler, but hey, if you read all this and watch the film...hell, maybe you'll understand it.

From here, it gets really convoluted, and this is just me judging it as a movie, not as a sequel. Through their studies, they believe that (and stay with me) by watching the video, your body picks up the DNA sequencing of a virus and the body constructs this virus which kills you. Reiko was an accomplice to Sadako (which is why she didn't die) and her notebook also contains said virus but a mutation of it. Sadako wants to return to the world, so when she comes to Dr. Ando after he watches the video, she gives him her DNA so when he sleeps with Mai (Ryuji's girlfriend from the Ringu), Sadako's DNA is passed onto her to grow in the womb and be reborn, not as 100% Sadako, but as a Sadako/Mai, both women's memories existing in Mai's new body reborn from old Mai who was killed or died or something. Sadako/Mai strikes up a deal with Dr. Ando to take his son's DNA and let his son be reborn through her if Ando will also do the work to let Ryuji be reborn through her too. (Insert long tedious scientific and psychic explanations to get it all to make sense)

The final idea of the story is Sadako wants everyone to feel her fear so they're going to publish Reiko's journal so everyone can read it, get the mutated virus, feel her fear, and take a new step in human evolution (or something like that). The subject was so heady that I'm sure this film is a direct adapatation of the book, since no one in their right mind would write something like this directly for the screen. I think the biggest weakness was fooling the target audience of Ringu that this film was for them, and completely missing a better audience that would have appreciated it.

In my opinion, I think if I had the time to watch it a few more times, I might finally understand it, but in a single viewing (which is how I watch most films), it contains far too much information and has to explain too much for me to say that the film just left me anything more than lost and confused. I think the explanations are way too far-fetched and one would have to suspend disbelief too far to get into the scientific reasoning behind the legendary cursed tape. And then there are those mysterious psychic powers through which so much exposition is gleaned...

Let me just say this: the original Japanese Ring films beat the sweet Mary mother of bejesus out of the utter garbage that are the Americanized versions. If you want the full Ringu story you should pick up Ringu: Anthology of Terror. It's about the best quality release you'll find for these movies, short of shelling out some major cash to import. Avoid the single disc releases of Ringu and Ringu 2, they combined total up to the cost of the anthology, so you're best bet is to go for the set.

Ringu: Anthology of Terror

(Sorry, DVDs have grown from a simple time waster to a full blown job for me, so I take it a little too seriously at times)

The part about Ringu and Rasen (Ringu 2 is coming from Netflix as we speak; will watch it tomorrow night) that bugged the heck out of me was the psychic element. It felt like a cheap way to get out of searching for the answers. Oh, I'm psychic, let me touch you. ZZZZZZZZZZZZT! Hm, now I have the answer to all of life's questions. Another Japanese flick I watched, Audition, was the same way. The bulk of the necessary information to understand the movie was delivered in a long psychic sequence near the end. Maybe it's just me, but that's one cheap way to get info.

I think the American Ring exploited the 7 day thing a lot more effectively than Ringu did, though Sadako was a lot freakier than Samara....at least in Ringu. Sexy Sadako in Rasen was just weird.

Hey George and Huggy, I think those are the good versions.  I guess the bad versions are just the movies that you just can sit there and watch...  

I got a good version of haunting.  The chilren playing violin as the crows is watching and as they play they get some fades of the haunting that's going on somewhere not far away from them as the crowd kind of gets it...  

Anyway the crowd kind of gets as the fades are going on and, well, after this, the spooky scene, we fade back to the regular thing that's going on within the script !  

To the script masters here ( Spoiler ) Well, I think the good hauntings are Ok, but the bad ones...   Dont know !  

Charles  

Rather than blow this up ito a "big-arse discussion" of any kind, let's make this constructive again. As writers, bad movies should serve a purpose. We should view them as something we don't want to do. I just watched Shanghai Knights (God help me), and I could cut 30 minutes out of that movie and people would thank me. It had more unnecessary scenes than anyone should care to deal with. Those worthless scenes ruined the movie's pacing. What is there to learn? Ensure scenes have a purpose or you'll be checkig the movie timer every few minutes hoping it's further along than it really is. I'm seriously considering running it through moviemaker or something and trimming out the fat.

I liked Rasen, but I do agree that it had way to many facts and information... It can be really confusing at times, especially if you don't know much about it and expect it to be a true Ringu sequel.

Oh, don't get me wrong. This movie was a true sequel. It picked up at the end of the first movie and moved onward using the characters and situations and presenting them in a new and different way. I just think for a movie, it was way too much. Some subjects work better as books than movies, and this is one of them. I'm sure the book was downright clever.

The movie is very close to the book. I've read all three (Ring, Rasen, Loop).