US Adaptations Of Japanese Horror Films - Case Study Example

?Comparative Essay: Ringu and The Ring Motion picture remakes tend to fail if compared to original. This is the common opinion of the audience. However, there were few remakes that have surpassed their original counterpart in terms of box-office sales or story-delivery. The Hollywood film, The Ring, the remake of the Japanese horror film, Ringu, is one of those successful remakes in many terms of many films aspects (Ozawa 2006). Does an added detail enhancement have something to do with the success of the remake to their original? Does the “Americanization” of the Japanese horror film contributed to the success of The Ring? This is a comparative study of the horror film with its two versions. Ringu was shown in Japan in 1998, directed by Hideo Nakata, and was considered one of the most popular J-Horror (Japanese Horror) in the country (Internet Movie Database 2011). It was a film adaptation of the novel series, Ring, created by Koji Suzuki. The Ring was released in The US and international theaters in 2001 and was largely a box-office all throughout countries with its release. The Ring was directed by Gore Verbinski, and has received mostly positive response from the audience while critical reception from known critics (IMDb 2011). Although the two films are tracking one storyline, Ringu was regarded more as supernatural-biological film while The Ring was more of psychological-horror. Specified genre already claimed differences between these two films (Wee 2011). Summary In order to give justifiable judgment and comparative execution of the two films, common summary is necessary for better understanding. The story opened with two girls watching TV, and talked about a deadly videotape. It was explained deadly because the videotape was cursed. The curse was that whoever watched the videotape, the viewer will die after 7 days. One of the two girls admitted that she had watched a certain tape with group of friends but was hesitant about the effect of the curse. She revealed that that night was her 7th day upon watching the film with her friends. After some irregular incidents happened in her house, she was killed by some negative force that came from the TV and was witnessed by her friend. The friend-witnessed was sent to a mental hospital as revealed in the course of the film. The girl who died happened to be the niece of the protagonist of the story named Reiko in Ringu and Rachel in The Ring. In her funeral she had found that she died at the same time her friends have died in what seems to be a mysterious death as their faces were morphed into terrifying emotion. With some lead she got from her sister, the mother of the girl, she was moved to start her own investigation. In this scene also Reiko/Rachelle’s son Yoichi/Aidan was introduced, a child with a supernatural perception. Upon investigating, Reiko/|Rachelle was able to retrieve and watched the cursed videotape and had received a phone call saying “seven days” – a warning that she only had seven days to live as the urban legend has been saying. She then seek the help of her former husband Ryuji/Noah, she let him watch the videotape and also received the phone call. She continued investigating as series of odd events she and her former husband had been experiencing after watching the tape. Accidentally, their son was also able to watch it. This forced Reiko/Rachelle and Ryuji/Noah to seek help and answer with the source of the videotape. Reaching the place where they think that the video was taken, they met a man whom presumably the husband of the woman who was combing her hair in the videotape. They learned that the one who made the videotape could be his strange daughter Sadako/Samara, whom killed by being thrown down and drowned in the well by her mother. In the tape, it can be seen that the mother had committed suicide by jumping off the cliff. Before committing suicide, the father revealed to them that Sadako/Samara is an evil child that won’t stop killing people. As the truth behind the videotape unraveled, about Sadako/Samara story, frightening circumstances were also happening. Their investigation ultimately ended up in the well where the cabin that her killed niece was into with her friends; the same well where Sadako/Samara was thrown down and drowned by her mother. Rachelle was able to retrieve the decaying corpse of Sadako/Samara. Thinking that all Sadako/Samara wanted was her body to be found, they went home with peace, as Rachelle had skipped her 7th-day-curse. The next day, Ryuji/Noah while alone in his apartment was suddenly attacked by the evil Sadako/Samara as it came out from his TV. He died after she showed her face to him with his face morphed into a frightened expression, the same with other victims of Sadako/Samara. Seeing what happened to her former husband, Rachelle suddenly realized it was not retrieving the corpse that spared her from her curse, but that she had passed on the tape to others. At the end, it was shown that she was teaching Yoichi/Aidan to recopy the videotape and had her son asking what will happen if the tape was passed on to others. Differences of Characters Sadako/Samara. In Ringu, Sadako was presented as an evil-possessed woman with a body of a young girl. She was made to be frightening all throughout. A strong force that people will really scared of than to get pity with. In Ringu, Sadako was suggested to have many biological complications like a vague possibility of having a twin, and of being a hermaphrodite. On the other hand, Samara of The Ring was presented an unwanted little girl with supernatural yet dark powers that her mother and father made her kept away from other humans and ultimately have her killed by choking her in a bag and throwing her out in the well. Her biological existence was not presented as complicated as Sadako is. Although Ringu is trying to branch out the roots of Sadako in a complex fashion in order to develop further the story and broaden the mysteriousness of Sadako, it only made the viewers confused in following the nature of Sadako. Whereas with Samara, presented more simple and humanely but is presumed to be a necessary element for a purpose. Samara’s character was made to be softer and pitiable before the climax, i.e. choking her and throwing her at the well with full face of an innocent girl. This was believed to establish the effectiveness of unexpected ending – showing her an as unstoppable force of evil. Although Sadako is creepier and darker than Samara, Samara was an improvement as her character was able to give more complex emotion with the viewers. Sadako is just plain creepy, but with Samara viewers can relate in some points of her account, like being misunderstood, loneliness, and longing for parental attention. Reiko/Rachelle. Reiko is a single mother of a boy, an investigative reporter and the main protagonist of the film. Reiko was presented to be a determined woman who will do everything to save those she cared for from the deadly curse brought by the videotaped. Reiko is more understandable with the supernatural perception of his son Yoichi as the film is suggestive that she is gifted such perception as well. She is being portrayed in parallel or in counterpart of the rejecting mother of Sadako, contrasting their reception toward their supernaturally-gifted offspring. Rachelle is also depicted as single mother and an investigative journalist in The Ring. She is portrayed more of a career-type woman before her niece had died in a grotesque and unexplainable way – it made her more attached with her son, Aidan. Rachelle was also portrayed being at odds with Aidan most of the time as she dismissed the disturbing behavior of Aidan, crediting it to him being fatherless. She is portrayed more of competitive personality than Reiko does being a journalist and the time she was researching about Anna Morgan. The enhanced-characterization of the protagonist in The Ring is more believable to survive in the horror film than Reiko’s character. Yoichi/Aidan. The seven-year old son of Reiko, Yoichi has a supernatural perception – has the ability to interact with unseen entities and able to decipher messages that were mysteries to the adult characters. Although given with such unique abilities, Yoichi played a small role in the film. He was also presented parallel to the character of Sadako. Aidan is also presented with supernatural perception. However, he was portrayed to have a mind more mature than his age. He always speaks in double meaning as if sending warnings to other end, and is hostile towards Rachelle and Noah. Making Aidan’s character puzzling for the audience gives more effective scaring to a horror film. In The Ring, Aidan showed to be stronger parallel of Samara than of Yoichi to Sadako. Making clearer what the filmmaker wanted to convey to the audience – how two special children were treated by their respective parents. Ryuji/Noah. In Ringu, Ryuji was portrayed to be as a scholastic professional, the estranged husband of Reiko and the father of Yoichi. Like Yoichi and Reiko, Ryuji also possessed supernatural perception. His relationship to a certain students was uncertain. He immediately believed Reiko about the mysteriousness of the video. The only difference of Noah to Ryuji is that Noah had no marital connection with Rachelle, although he is the biological father of Aidan. Victims’ Faces. In Ringu, the niece of Reiko and Ryuji died with their faces were frozen like they were trying to scream in a most fearful manner; mouth wide open, eyes depilated, and hands in surrendering pose. In The Ring, the corpse of the victims of Samara had morphed faces like it was brutally beaten and tortured as nerves and blood clot scattered all over the faces. This enhancement added fright to the audience, especially the first time that a first corpse in the closet was shown briefly. Sadako/Samara’s appearance. When Sadako came out from the TV set in Ringu, she is wet and pale. Her complexion is like that of being soaked in water for some hours. She came out from the TV very slow and struggling-like. It is a little unbelievable to the part of Ryuji to be victimized as he had ample time to run before she can totally come out. In the Ring, Sadako came out from the TV in a predator-like movement. Her visual existence seems to be more part of a TV even when she came out of it. Her skin is decaying, which is more believable being soaked in the well for a long time. Her hair is wet and dropping some volume of water. Her appearance is believable to be more fatal in horrific aspect and as someone who had been soaked in the well for a long time. Conclusion Added enhancement in The Ring that weren’t present in Ringu helped to build climax and realism in the scenes that Verbinski wanted to convey to the audience (McLoughlin 2007). One of the enhancements is simplicity in the details that made the message clearer and for the story easy to follow (Apple 2003), particularly about the nature of Samara in contrast to the complex nature of Sadako. Some films that were given some American touch were effective to their genre – perhaps the well written screenplay and well-tended directing contributed in giving justice to make a Japanese film be effectively translated into a Hollywood version. Works Cited “Ringu”. Internet Movie Database, The. IMDb.com. 2011 “The Ring”. Internet Movie Database, The. IMDb.com. 2011 Apple, Alex. The Ring, Review. Mandiapple.com. 2003 McLoughlin, Shawn. “I Swear I’ve Seen This Before! – Ringu vs. The Ring.” DVD in My Pants. 2007 Ozawa, Eimi. “Remaking Corporeality and Spatiality: U.S. Adaptations of Japanese Horror Films.” Conference Special Edition, University of Tokyo, Japan, 2006 Wee, Valerie. “Visual Aesthetics and Ways of Seeing: Comparing Ringu and The Ring”. Cinema Journal. 50 No.2. University of Texas Press, Winter 2011 Read More