THE RING (Samara & Sadako's Curse + Ending) Explained

Hey guys what’s happening? Niyat here with film comics explained and as voted for by everyone in the latest poll, today we’ll be exploring The Ring, the 2002 supernatural horror directed by Gore Verbinski. The film is essentially a remake of Hideo Nakata’s amazing 1998 Japanese horror, based on Koji Suzuki’s eponymous novel. As such, we’ll be noting some of the major differences between the three as we go through this video, especially at the end to avoid spoilers.

First published in 1991, Koji’s novel is a dark ride into resentment and how that can spread like a malevolent disease. Set in modern-day Japan, when four teenagers mysteriously die simultaneously, a reporter named Kazuyuki Asakawa hears about one of the deaths from his taxi driver and begins a personal investigation into the matter. As the case begins taking a sinister turn with the discovery of a mysterious tape, Kazuyuki recruits the help of his oddball friend, Ryuji Takayama (a former doctor turned philosophy professor) to solve the riddle.

There are quite a few key differences between the novel and the 1998 film adaptation. Most notably, in the novel Asakawa is a man named Kazuyuki, while in the film Asakawa is a woman named Reiko. (For the purposes of the explanation, we will use Koji to represent his main character). Kazuyuki also has a wife and daughter in the novel, while in the 98 film, Reiko is divorced from Ryuji, with whom Reiko shares a boy named Yoichi.

Taking this dynamic and many of the cues found in Nakata’s film, (which we’ll be discussing later in the video) Verbinski’s movie is more of a loose adaptation of an adaptation, then a true representation of the novel.

Hey there folks!! My name is Niyat and this channel was created to assist in answering all your questions about Films, Comics, Games and Popular culture in a fun and engaging way!

#thering #ringu #sadako

ABOUT ME
Disclaimer: I do not own rights to any of the source materials I used in this work, appealing to allowance made for "fair use" purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research, under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976.

[patrickaker]

The quick shot of the corpse in the closet was one of the most frightening moments I ever witnessed in a movie.

[angryfirefly]

The terrifying thing about this movie is how impersonal the curse is. You get it by accident, doing something routine. And then, it's inescapable.

[sarahhales]

Fun fact: If Samara’s voice sounds familiar it is because the same actress who voices Lilo in Lilo and Stich.

[Dennis_Reynolds_Golden_God]

This movie is almost entirely to blame for me being scared of the house we lived in growing up. This and The Frighteners scarred me for life.

[SamuelBrown]

This movie and The Grudge scarred me at a young age. Now roughly 20 years later I'm a horror degenerate and love these movies

[Andrew-zqip]

I was working at a movie theater when this came out and remember having to convince people that "yes.. it's PG13... but it's still scary as hell"
And then when each show ended we would whisper "7 days" as people were leaving because we were all dorks like that.

[lesmortz]

I remember seeing this movie in the theater and not being too freaked out about it. When I got home and went to bed, not even thinking about it, I would close my eyes and see the well and the forest behind it clear as day. It was almost like I was there. Creeped me out

[suiradkeemaj]

When you've watched the scary movie version of this scene more than the original 😩😂

[rhondajohnson]

I was a grown woman when this came out and ol' girl crawling out the well, out of the TV and onto floor towards the dude gave me nightmares for 2 weeks!!! Great review of the movie, sir!

[IronDragon-]

One of the few genuinely scary movies I've enjoyed in the past. It doesn't rely on stupid jump scares like modern films but preys on our natural fear of the unknown and true evils.

Love this movie.

[conanhighwoods]

Oddly enough, the Matrixy green tint fits it because the whole thing turns out to take place in a simulation(in the novels/Loop). Honestly never would have guessed it, cool plot twist, would love to see Loop get adapted.

[Barbozo]

The only thing I don't understand is why the people samara kills end up with such a physically distorted face, the boyfriend literally has his nose deleted from existence

[TupocalypseShakur]

I always found it funny how the American version put more focus on the tape than the Japanese version, yet Sadako is now heavily associated with it

[dommyboysmith]

"You helped? You weren't supposed to help her." *Surprised Pikachu face*
....
"Well my psychic son, it would have been helpful for you to share ANY of the wealth of information you decided to hide, knowing full well I was going to die yesterday..."

First thing I would have done before having him copy the tape, is whoop his secret-keeping butt! 🤣

[CeeDoubleU]

The ring scared the absolute sh*t outta me as a kid

[konstantinoskaragiannis]

"The Ring"(2002) is an excellent supernatural horror movie! This is an atmospheric slow burn scary movie!

[Icanonlycountto]

The kid actor in the American version was incredible

[elbee]

There were manga (Japanese comic) adaptions of the Ring which were different as well. I think all the films (English and Japanese) and manga all had sequels as well which took their concepts in different directions. It's an interesting, though terrifying, concept to explore, and arguably highlighted some of the problems of "going viral" before the idea even existed. It would be difficult to do a "modern" adaption today, as everything is so repeatable, instant and "viral" by default in terms of media. The slow process of VHS duplication was kind of unique historically and just worked so well for those themes.

[k.w.]

I was traumatized by this movie at the age of 4, I refused to shower alone or in a bathtub, I refused to watch other channels that weren't Disney or Nick and I totally refused to get out of bed after I was on it. However I became a fan of horror movies, and I was brave enough to rewatch this when I was 18. Now I can appreciate the beauty of this movie and book. Thank you for this recap and contrast between both versions and the books, I abs loved it.

[johnsid]

This was the first movie I watched that truly made me understand and fear the horror genre, I didn't move a muscle for the whole runtime