View Larger Image |
Ringu 2 Director: Hideo Nakata Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 95 minutes Studio: Dreamworks / Universal Studios Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2005-08-23 Buy from Amazon |
 "Not even close to being as scary or as good as the original Ringu!"I had been waiting for this film to be released on DVD for years after having seen the original Ringu, I thought the original Ringu was very well amde and scary. A much better film than the American remake The Ring. Well this time around I have to say I was very disappointed in Ringu 2. When I watched this film I had recently seen The Ring Two which was made by the same director but I found to be somewhat boring with very few scary scenes. But it turns out that Ringu 2 was not only boring but had no scary scenes at all. When I watch a horror movie I hope to see something scary on the screen. It doesn't have to make me jump out of my seat but it could at least accelerate my heart rate a little or something along those lines. But instead with Ringu 2 I found myself falling asleep and I wasn't even tired, I was bored. This film was nothing like Ringu and I was hoping it would be. It is a shame that such a good film has such a bad sequel.  "Far Better than the American Ring Two"While Rasen is the better of the Japanese sequels, this is far better than the garbage that is the American Ring Two. This movie does not follow the book (see Rasen), but it is an entertaining, creepy story, and not a bad sequel. This movie was released simultaneously with Rasen in Japan, and features the same characters from the first movie (as does Rasen), but follows a different story line. There is little gore, but the mood is heavy and chilling. Very recommended if you have seen the original Ringu and enjoyed it.  "Ring around Sadako"In 1998, the sequel to the hit horror film "Ringu" was made. The film "Rasen" was based on Koji Suzuki's sequel of the same name. Well, people hated the movie, and it tanked at the box office. So the succeeding year, the production company made a totally unrelated sequel: "Ringu 2." As a result, "Ringu 2" is not up to the standards of the original movie; it suffers from a case of sequelitis, and it has little connection to Suzuki's original books. Despite this, it's not nearly as bad as it could have been. It suffers from several weak spots (Mai, Mai, Mai), but has quite a few chills too. It picks up where "Ringu" left off: Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada) has died of the curse, and ex-wife Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) and her young son have vanished. Mai Takano (Miki Nakatani), Ryuji's girlfriend, is shocked by his mysterious demise. Soon she hears rumours of a cursed videotape, which kills anyone who watches it, seven days later. Searching for more answers, Mai sets out to find Reiko and her son Yoichi (Rikiya Otaka). But when she does, she finds that Yoichi is demonstrating psychic powers similar to the ghoulish Sadako. Unsurprisingly, Reiko isn't about to allow Sadako to possess her son -- and will sacrifice anything to keep him safe. Don't expect splatter-gore and undead monsters right off the bat. "Ringu 2" is a slow-cooking horror movie, which takes until the final act to make your hair stand on end. Unfortunately, that's most of the movie, and the slowness of it is a distinct drawback. Up until that final act, it's rather passionless, as if the scriptwriters were killing time with exposition. Alas, the potentially-possessed child isn't enough to scare us, and neither is the exposition-of-the-Ring-virus subplotting. Just wait it out, and eventually you'll get scared sleepless. Hideo Nakata, knowing when he's got a good thing going, retains a lot of things from the first movie: Creepy lighting, direction, colourless surroundings, nightmare worlds and family problems. He also retains that quietly creepy dialogue, and the minimalistic glimpses of Sadako. The less we see her, the creepier she is. Matsushima does the same thing she did in "Ringu," only more so. And she's good at the terrified, confused woman who will do whatever it takes to save her son. It's nice to see that Nakata retained that important theme from the first film. Nakatani is the flipside; while she's a pretty good actress, her character is rather naive and twerpy. Thankfully, in creating their own "Ringu 2," Hideo Nakata and Co. expanded on the story rather than repeating it with a new cast. And while the result is rather boring for the first few acts, the final parts are shocking and ghastly. "what!!!!!!"geez people i mean what's wrong with you? the movie you say you hate isn't that bad you just have to understand the plot or is it you can't read you illiterate idiots!!! not all horror movies have to be overly grotesque i mean look at carrie and rosemarys baby they weren't gushing out blood for every freakin minute this is what a movie used to be in the old ages but i have to agree with the dvd packeging reviews the ring two has more features but the ringu two only had movie but the u.k. version got a special edition with eastern asian real so yeah you don't want to spend money just for this but people it is still a good movie i mean you just have to know the plot and the ideas going in by far this is a pretty good sequal that most movies would go for plus this is much better than stephen spillberg's "war of the worlds" there were to many plot holes on that so please don't turn down this movie till you see it still is a good kind of it's genre from most... "Ringu? About as scary as Pingu."Lord, I wanted to like this. I rate the original highly, in that you could really relate to the plot in a "what would YOU do?" scenario (like the "would YOU say Candyman five times in the mirror?") but when the plot goes so much up its own arse (I'm British, I'm allowed to say that) that one of the main scenes involves PLUGGING a boy into a swimming pool because "sea water isn't conductive enough" (don't ask) you just know your simple premise has jumped right down that damn well alongside old Marilyn Manson-features. The scares just aren't here either. Instead of watching behind your fingers at Sadako like in the first movie, here you just feel like telling her "you know what? Get over it. And brush your hair". I've yet to see the third installment of this never ending franchise, but if this bloated mess is anything to go by I won't be missing much. No funny comments here, because it's a real shame. It's always fun to rip into bad movies and CD's, but The Curmudgeon gets no pleasure from mocking movies that COULD, and SHOULD, have been great. It's just part of the job. [...] |
