| François | 4 | |
| MLF | 4 | |
| Arno Ching-wan | 3.75  |
|
| Ghost Dog | 3.5 | |
| Ordell Robbie | 3.5 |
B Movie |
| Xavier Chanoine | 3.25 | |
| Tenebres83 | 3 | |
| Junta | 2.75 | |
| drélium | 2.75 | |
| Marc G. | 2 |
Ring is lightyears from Shining or Kwaidan which transcended the genre to become classics. Anyway, Ring is a movie that counts. Why? Because it is to the horror genre what Godzilla is to catastrophe movie : a work that is just efficient but oh so efficient. Just like Honda only filmed well the crowd (i.e. the main thing for a kaiju eiga), Ring only frightens. And with this movie we recover the sensation that we thought had dissapeared with the Scream-like slashers. The sense of duration of Nakata's directing, the hypnotic music of Kawai Kenji and the remarkable work on the sounds contribute to the efficiency of the movie. Ring's pitch deserves praises for being the metaphor of its effect on the spectator: his video tape terrorizing the heroes as strongly as the movie does for the spectator. And its screenplay mixes elements from US thrillers (the counting of the day till IT happens) and elements from japanese ghost-culture (the allure of the ghosts, the pit). Okay, it does lack of the dimension of social commentary of a Kaïro (deeper but less, less efficient than Nakata's opus), the wonderful frame of a Kwaidan or the genius actor's performances of Ferrara's the Addiction (Christopher Walken is genius there, the actors of Ring are just good).
Nakata is neither Kurosawa Kiyoshi nor Ferrara but it ain't his goal. He's not great but as his next movies confirmed he's consciencious and steady. But those qualities are less and less pervalent in the actual genre movie which is falling into the traps of manierism and "trying to be Tarantinian" mockery.
