The Un-Lost Ringu Sequel

I finally managed to see Rasen, the last of the Ringu movies. Rasen has been available on video since 1998, but never available with English subtitles. And since my understanding of the Japanese language doesn't go much farther than "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto," I was never able to watch it. But now that's it's available on region 1 DVD with Engrish subtitles, I was able to complete the Ringu Cycle. And now I see why it was never available to the English-speaking world.

Rasen is the sequel to Ringu. Both are adaptations of books by Koji Suzuki. The two were produced back-to-back, with almost the same cast and crew, and released almost simultaneously. The Japanese loved Ringu, and hated Rasen. The producers, rather than cut their losses and move on to the next sequel (which they eventually did), decided to bring the cast and crew back, and brought in Hideo Nakata, Ringu's director, to write and direct a remake of the sequel (much like what Warner Bros. did with Exorcist: The Beginning). Hence, Ringu 2 was born.

Much in the way that Ringu 2 and The Ring 2 start at the same source and go in different directions, Ringu 2 and Rasen do the same. Unfortunately, Rasen went in the wrong direction.

Rasen begins right after Ringu ends: with the discovery of Ryuji's body. Mitsuo, a friend of Ryuji's from medical school, is charged with performing the autopsy. During the autopsy and his conversations with Mai, Ryuji's girlfriend and the one who found his body, Mitsuo becomes entangled in the mythos of Sadako and the "video curse".

Now, this is a perfectly good setup for a movie. But Rasen chooses not to follow it. Nor does it bother to follow the pattern set by Ringu. Gone is the "video curse". Turns out the "curse" is actually a virus, contracted by watching the tape. And you needn't actually watch the tape to catch it; you can read about the tape and get it. In fact, you can have sex with someone who watched the tape and get it. And the whole cloning aspect of the virus is ridiculous. (This movie also makes the Duplicating Tape Error: If only two copies of the tape exist (the original and the copy that Reiko made, both of which remained in her possession), where do all of these extra copies come from? Every Ringu sequel, Japanese and American, makes this logical error.)

Oh, and remember Sadako? That nice ghost that caused this whole thing? After Mitsuo watches the tape, Sadako makes an appearance, and (here's where the movie makes its worst error) she's hot. AND naked. Hot, naked Asian chicks could make me do a lot of things, but being scared shitless is not one of them. Speaking of being scared shitless, you won't be while watching this movie, since it's about as scary as any given episode of Fraggle Rock.

After having seen this movie, it's no wonder people stayed away in droves. The sequel to one of the scariest movies in the past 10 years turns out to be something out of a Michael Crichton novel. And not a very good one, at that.

Not that Ringu 2 turned out to be any better, but at least it had the common decency to be scary.

For completists only.