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Movietyme "Bringing Hollywood That Little Bit Closer"
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£19.99
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Ring Virus: Korean Remake Of "Ring" (Region-All) |
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Shin Eun-Kyung, Jung Jin-Young, Bae Doo-Na |
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The Ring Virus (hereafter referred to as Ring) is framed in the genre style of so many other ordinary Korean horror/thriller films such as, Whispering Corridor or A Quiet Family, but with a unique character of its own. This movie is the first joint project of its kind done by Korea and Japan. The producer of the Japanese version of Ring invested 50% of the total production cost (1.25 billion won) and another 50% was drawn from Korean producers at AFDF and Hanmac Films. Last year the Japanese version, based on a Japanese bestseller, was shown in Japan to an audience of 4.5 million people.
Korea’s version of The Ring doesn't have the usual features one has come to expect of horror films. Things like bloodstained bodies and cruel murder scenes, but it still makes you shiver with fear. The unexpected but shocking conclusion of the film is brilliantly done.
Sun-ju (Shin Eun-Gyeong) is a journalist. She finds out her niece died at the same hour as three of her other friends, all in different places. With her suspicions aroused, she asks for help from Choe Yol (Jeong Jin-Yeong), a neuro-surgeon, who has fallen into disgrace. He performs autopsies on the dead and claims their deaths were supernatural. The only clue is a video full of strange images and sounds. The video concludes with a message saying "You will die in a week. If you want to survive..." Choe Yol finds out that the video was recorded through the powerful ESP of a dead girl who lived a lonely and unhappy life.
Ring is a movie that frightens viewers simply with the story line and mood it creates. It is successful at sustaining this feeling of mystery and ends very dramatically leaving viewers with a sense of horrific tension. Chills crawl up and down your spine as you watch Sun-ju hug the corpse of the dead girl dumped 25 years ago into a dark well. The monster in the movie is a video more frightening than anything real or imagined. Anyone who watches this video is supposed to die within a week. There are no wounds on the body as the victims die from heart attacks caused by the shock. However, since one cannot find the secret of the video until one sees its, what is to be done?
"The Japanese version focuses on horror but I wanted to emphasize a mood of mystery in the Korean version." says director Kim Dong-Bin whose Ring is his second film after his debut work, a romantic comedy entitled Mom Gets a Lover in 1996. His effort to make a total change in his style with this movie seems to be successful. Viewers are completely caught up in the icy tone and atmosphere of the piece.
Ring does have some weak points. It sometimes fails to maintain the tension with a solid story line. There is no explanation of how Choe Yol finds out the dead girl's whereabouts, and there are frequent jumps in the plot. However if you're interested in seeing a high-quality thriller rather than a teenage genre horror like I Know What You Did Last Summer, you may be impressed with the director's skill in capturing your interest up to the last minute.
Ring is an official selection for the Fant-Asia Film Festival opening this summer in Montreal. If you want to enjoy something that makes even the most hot and sleepless summer night, chilly, don't miss this.
A news reporter, Hong, Seon-Joo is shocked at her nephew's death. The fact is found that all the other three friends of her nephew who traveled together died of heart attack at the same time. Seon-Joo intuitively feels something ominous in this case. Although she visits Doctor Choi, Yeol who autopsied her nephew and maintained his death was resulted from something supernatural power, he is very unkind to her. In the meantime, Seon-Joo discovers videotape, which is filled with illegible images. The caption under screen shows as 'You will be killed on this very time exactly a week later. If you want to survive, do this..' and the tape ends at that point. Seon-Joo visits Doctor Choi again with the tape. In this time, he shows curiosity on the tape and duplicates it. Through review of the tape he finds the images on it were made up by supernatural power and the power was from a ghost who was dead after miserable life. Doctor Choi and Seon-Joo search the ghost's dead body and bury it. However, Doctor Choi mistakenly dies in this time. Seon-Joo gets to be seized with a panic. How is he killed and she survives?
Then.... |
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Audio Format: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Video Format: Widescreen 16:9
Languages: Korean
Subtitles: English, Japanese
Country Made: Korea
Region Code: ALL
Running Time: 110 |
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