Ring 0: Birthday (Japan, 2000)

The prequel to the horror film Ringu, this movie provides the background story of how Sadako later became the vengeful murdering spirit. The story starts with her as a shy, somewhat withdrawn, college student who nonetheless gets involved in a drama club. The director thinks she has talent, but some of the other performers start to get jealous of the attention he gives her. Meanwhile, a reporter investigating Sadako's spiritualist mother thinks there's something very suspicious about the young woman, and arrives on campus to confront Sadako.

While Ring 0 seems to have the biggest chance of failure of the Ring-sequels it's actually one of the more fleshed out ones. I've read it was panned at release and deemed a "mediocre Carrie-ripoff", and while one could certainly see the similarities between the two I enjoyed Birthday for what it was, a prequel with less spooks but an engaging story which slowly evolved into something more sinister. It's based on one of the stories by original Ringu author Koji Suzuki, making it a huge piece of the backstory puzzle, it looks great with slow camera movements mixed with muted colors capturing an almost nostalgic 90's look. 

More story-based than you'd hope out of a Ring film, but still ambitious and a noticeable competent director behind the camera. Maybe it's a guilty pleasure, but still, I liked the film and doesn't see the reason to bash it for not having Sadako constantly coming through the TV-screen.

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Ring 2 (Japan, 1999)

In this sequel to Ringu (1998), Mai Takano is trying to learn more about the death of her professor, Ryûji. She soon hears stories about a videotape haunted by the spirit of a girl named Sadako, who died many years earlier. Supposedly, anyone watching the tape will die of fright exactly one week later. After some investigating, she learns that Ryûji's son, Yôichi, is developing the same psychic powers that Sadako had when she was alive. Mai must now find some way to keep Yôichi and herself from becoming Sadako's next victims.

You'd think it would be a horrible move to make a sequel to such a big horror milestone as Ringu, and while Ring 2 doesn't live up to high expectations following such a great horror film it does however fill in some gaps and delivers a subtle feeling of dread. It has all the right ingredients; characters that doesn't feel shoehorned in for the sake of the plot, a spooky and unnerving soundtrack (the intro music sets the mood perfectly), no desperate tries to shock the viewers with gore/jump-scares but instead keeps a steady and dark atmosphere throughout the film. It's not as memorable as the first installment but still worth a watch if the Ringu itch didn't end after the first film. 

Genre: Horror/Mystery

Ringu (Japan, 1998)

Reiko is researching into a 'Cursed Video' and interviewing teenagers about it. When her niece Tomoko dies of 'sudden heart failure' with an unnaturally horrified expression on her face, Reiko investigates. She finds out that some of Tomoko's friends, who had been on a holiday with Tomoko the week before, had died on exactly the same night at the exact same time in the exact same way. Reiko goes to the cabin where the teens had stayed and finds an unlabeled video tape. 

Yes, it's one of the most well-known horror films in history, but no asian movie list is complete without it. And we're not talking about some sequel, remake or reboot, we're talking the 1998 original Ringu. The film that hundreds of others movies copied and tried to imitate in its wake. I know many say it's somewhat dated and by now the whole 'ghost with long black hair'-thing has been done to death (no pun intended), but see this film alone, at night in a pitch black room and try not to get scared. It gets all the important things right; the scares are not over-used, the main characters are sympathetic and likeable, the soundtrack is haunting and minimalistic, and it all centers around a great original mystery that you just have to see to the end. It's more or less essential for every horror fan to have seen it. 

It's humorous to imagine back to the time of Ringu's release, when it emerged only as a bootleg in the West and had a reputation of being one of the scariest films ever made, just like The Blair Witch Project (though that came out the year after Ringu). Nowadays it has been released countless times on DVD and Blu-ray, but once it only existed as a hard-to-find, almost mythical piece of cinema.

Genre: Horror/Mystery