Additions and Substraction of Elements in a Movie - Essay Example

Additions and Subtraction of elements in a movie: Certain elements are added to a movie or removedfor various purposes and among them include appealing to the target audience. The main purpose of movie producers is to make sales, and to make sales, there production has to have features that are attractive to their audience. For example the Ring is a horror movie based on writings of a Japanese author. It made entrance into the cinema halls in the year 1998 and it is based from the novel by Koji Suzuki, the ring (Suzuki, 9). The movie is produced by Hideo Nakata and it draws its traditional tale from Bancho Sarayashiki. This Japanese movie is a horror movie that depicts a video tape that is cursed and whoever watches it, must die after a week. The film stars Hiroyuki Sanada, RikiyaOtaka, and Nanako Matsushima as members of a divorced family and they play an impressive role to make this movie seem a reality. This Japanese movie was produced in 2002 in the United States of America as The Ring and in South Korea as the Ring Virus. The 2002 sequel of the Ringu, Japanese version, features American actors and actresses who, based on the plot of Suzuki’s book and Hideo Nakata movie, produce a horror movie which focuses on the cursed video tape. The American movie is directed by Verbinski and has Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson as the main cast. The movie just as its Japanese series was a commercial hit in America and recorded huge sales and won numerous awards, such as the Saturn award 2002, The Teen choice and MTV award, 2003 and this propelled the producers of this movie to produce another sequel of the Ring in 2005. The South Korean version of the Ring is called the Ring Virus. The version, just like the American movie borrows heavily from the plot of the book the Ring by Suzuki. The South Korean version is extremely similar to the Japanese version except on its cast and areas of production. This paper will analyze the American Version of the Ring versus Ringu, the Japanese version, highlighting its differences and how they attract their respective audience. It will examine the elements added or removed in these two adaptations in order to widen their appeal to the targeted audience. The American version of the Ringu, i.e. The Ring though similar in narration and theme, has a different plot from the Japanese Sequel of Ringu. The America version involves Katie Embry, who is 16 years old, Becca Kotler who is 17 years old. They discuss a cursed video tape that whoever watches it, must die. Katie reveals that seven days ago, in a cabin, she watched the movie and explains the curse that befalls those who watch the movie. The two friends laugh off but suddenly, after mysterious events, she collapses and dies. Becca witnesses these events which make her run mad and there after taken to mental hospital. In the Japanese movie, two teenagers involved are called Masami and Tomoko. Tomoko narrates the same story to Masami and in the event, Masami realizes that Tomoko is meant to die, and she dies suddenly. The differences in this plot are the sense that while Katie and Becca laughed off the legend of the cursed video tape, Tomoko and Masami took it seriously. The American version of the Ring is meant for American citizens and those who share a similar culture to them.Embry and Becca laugh off the superstitions surrounding the video tape, Masami and Tomoko take it seriously and belief on the existence of curses. In the American culture, curses are just beliefs and they cannot happen and therefore this aspect of the play appeals to a wider audience of the American society (Lacefield, 28). The Japanese are rather a superstitious people, they believe in their traditions and the power of curses, and this is the reason as to why Massimo believed in the cursed video tape, and that Tomino was meant to die. This aspect of the movie’s plot is attractive to the Japanese people since it appeals to their culture. Therefore, the directors of The Ring, in removing remorse as depicted from Japanese version and adding laughter, as witnessed in the ring, were targeting the American and non-superstitious audience. After Kate’s death, her cousin, Aidan is affected and Embry, asks Rachel to investigate the causes of Kate’s death. Rachel is a journalist and she enlists the help of her ex-boyfriend., this is after Rachel watched the tape and heard a child’s voice telling her seven days. Meaning she had seven days to live. The Japanese version has a different plot. In the Japanese Version, the investigator is a journalist by the name of Reiko, just as the American version, she investigates the case after realizing the death of her niece, Tomoko and three other friends. She is not told to investigate the case by her sister as in the American version, and no one is affected by the death of Massimo in the Japanese version. She manages to trace where the video tape is by analyzing photos of her dead niece and later on, she watches the video tape and as soon as she finishes it, she sees a reflection and turning back, she doesn’t see anybody, she also receives a call and the after assumes that she has seven days to live (Suzuki and Glynne, 24). The American version of the movie does not have the reflection that the Japanese Journalist saw while in the cabin. This is a subtraction in relation to the American movie. The American movie introduces Embry, who is Rachel sister while the Japanese movie has nothing of sought, it does not mention Reikos Sister. By adding Embry, Rachel sisters and Aidan her cousin, the producers of the movie achieved their objectives of installing family unity and therefore appealing to the family audience. The American society values family ties and to depict such ties in a movie series, enhances the success of the movie and this can be proved by the numerous awards the movie earned. It also depicts the close relationship Aidan had with Kate and due to her death, Aidan was affected. This part appeals to teenagers, (Stamp, 18) who have close association with their relatives of the same age. This addition plays a significant role in appealing to teenagers, and in 2003, it won the Teenagers award. In the American version, Rachel appeals to her ex-boyfriend, to use his media techniques in analyzing the contents of the video tape while in the Japanese version, Reiko appeals to her ex-husband. The two movies have different script’s relating to family ties, and removal of family ties in the American version and substituting it with an ex-boyfriend centers on the beliefs held by the producer. The Japanese version depicts a divorcee, in Reiko while the American version depicts a single mother in Rachel. In movie production, various producers normally write script’s basing on their beliefs (Berkowitz, 19). For instance, it is possible that Gore Verbinski does not encourage divorce in a family set up therefore instead of casting a divorced family; he opted for a single family therefore appealing to an audience who share the same beliefs as him. There is the difference of casts. In The Ring, the director has used American actors to produce the movie. For example, Naomi Well plays a leading role of Rachel Keller, the journalist, Jane Alexander as Doctor Grasnik, Richard Morgan, acted by Brian Cox, Sara Rue as baby sitter, etc. The reason as to this is because the movie was made for an American audience. The American people easily identify with their American counterparts as opposed to the Japanese. The locations of its production are also different from the locations of producing Ringu. The Ring was shot in America, creating a sense of identity among its target audience, namely the Americans and people influenced by the American culture. The American characters, easily adapted into the thematic connotation of the movie due to familiarity of the shooting background, as a result, the movie was well received in the market (Moretti, 36), and its financial success was great. Due to these changes, the producers of the movie managed to give differences of cultural beliefs and attitudes between the Japanese and the Americans, for example on issues of superstitions and death. This is depicted by the manner in which Kate and Becca scoff at the allegations of the tape having a curse on it and therefore, increasing ticket sales on movie theatres and DVD sales.Changes in the script have given the movie a smooth flow of the plot and therefore keeping the audience interested and at the same time in suspense (Moul, 43). Changes in the script have given the producers of the movie more room to transform it into a series and a sequel. For example, in 2005, The Ring 2, was produced by Hideo Nakata and another sequel, the Ring 3D is expected in 2012. All this are made possible by various changes from the original script and movie,the ring and therefore appealing to lovers of sequence horror movies. Due to the many changes that occurred from the original version of Ringu, many versions of the movie have been produced, even a TV series. In Japan alone, two sequels arose from the movie, with each having different versions and interpretation of Sudoku’s book. They are Rasen, produced in 1998, ring 2, produced in 1999, Ring 0, Birthday, prequel. All this series arose out of the successes of Ringu, and took its adaptations. Their production won’t have been possible without introducing changes into the scripts of the movie, in as much as making sure that they are in line with the original theme depicted in the movie. In keeping to its original theme, but changing the characters and plot of the movie, The Ring managed to win the following awards, Saturn Awards, the movie was nominated as the best movie production and it won in that category, and Naomi Watts won as the best actress. In the MTV movie awards, the ring managed to get nomination as the best movie production. In the Teenager awards, the movie managed to win as the best movie horror. In line with these awards, the directors of the movie managed to achieve their intentions of appealing to the wider masses and therefore increasing sales and making the horror movie appealing to the wider masses. Works Cited Berkowitz, Edward D.. Mass appeal: the formative age of the movies, radio, and tv. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print. Lacefield, Kristen. The scary screen: media anxiety in The ring. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2010. Print. Moretti, Enrico. Social learning and peer effects in consumption evidence from movie sales. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008. Print. Moul, Charles C.. A concise handbook of movie industry economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Stamp, Shelley. Movie-struck girls: women and motion picture culture after the nickelodeon. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. Print. Suzuki, Ko?ji. Ring. New York: Vertical, 2003. Print. Suzuki, Ko?ji, and Glynne Walley. Birthday. New York, N.Y.: Vertical, 2006. Print. Suzuki, Ko?ji. Ringu. To?kyo?: Kadokawa Shoten, 51993. Print. Read More