**Welcome to my spat of the moment**
Okay, before I start, I’d like to clarify that I actually LIKED Ringu, much more so than the American version, but I won’t go into that. — However, I hate calling it Ringu which cleanly brings me to a segway into why I hate it. Still with me? I don’t care…
Ever Seen “Ringu”? you probably haven’t. Ever seen the cover for it? Besides right over there? Yeah well, on the cover it just says “Ring” not ‘Rings’ or ‘Ringu’ or ‘The Ringu’… Just RING. That’s it. Ring. Period. In fact, there isn’t even a period. One Word. Four Letters. In a legible, subsequent order. Still with me? Screw you. Anyway…
North Americans all watched the new “The Ring” on video and DVD and saw the adverisment at the end of the film advertising “Ringu”.. because that’s what the original is called here. It’s some weird translation thing that I don’t quite understand. My friend and I would talk about “The Ring” (the original) fairly often before the American got put to print, and now everyone, being the experts they are, when I say “…in the original Ring”, they say: “Oh, you mean Ringu?” … DAH!!ASDDksdhflsdkhg;oaishsjklcvhbs’;dlkghW[;’ I BLOODY HATE IT!! Yeah I’m so sorry.. I meant ‘RingU‘…. excuse me while I’m obviously so far behind on my movie titles. The title is flippin “RING”. The American one is called “The American One”. I have spoken. Be still.
2nd Reason: Much Like Sixth Sense did for any movie that had tension ANYWHERE in the plot, “Ring” (again, the original) is compared to EVERY — SINGLE — SPOOKY — MOVIE — with Asians in it. Suddenly Everything(from areas that go from Thai to Chinese to Korean flicks) like the Eye, Tetsuo, the Phone, The Grudge, Dark Water (okay, same director with Dark Water, so that’s okay), All Night Long, EVERYTHING before or after “Ring” are all subjected to attempts at hot-shot reviews like:
“Well, compared to Ringu – which, for those of you that aren’t nearly as cool as me, is the title of the japanese version….”
BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH.. Shut UP!!!! How bout numbering your foriegn movie library past your current count of ONE??? How’d that be for a mind-scramble? Or a Mind-scrambleU, if you will. Does that help? Shut up…
Wow.. I feel a lot better now. I won’t go to the shrink this week.
Most horror movies make me yawn. The Ring scared the crap out of me. Ringu scared the crap out of me even more. Thats all I wanted to say.
P.S. Dave, I loved your review. However, you may have some issues with anger that you would like to explore with your shrink. Just a suggestion.
Stella
How bout the word “Hammer”? hehehe
Just to give you the heads up on the “Ringu” translation thing. “Ringu” is just the Japanese transliteration of the English word “ring”. Japanese has stolen a lot of words from English in the last century, and worked them into their language. But because of the way that the Japanese language works, you sometimes get extra letters/sounds thrown in or left out.
In Japanese, the word “Ringu” is spelled with three letters, which represent the sounds: Ri,n,gu. This is because every letter in Japanese represents a consonant + vowel combination, with the exception of “n”, which can stand on its own. In the pronounciation of “ringu”, the “r” would sound like a “flap” (the sound in the middle of the word “butter” in English) which sounds almost like a “D”. The “i” sounds much like it does in the English word “ring”. The “n” sounds the same, and the “g” would be pronounced like the “g” in the English word “game”. When you have the “u” at the end of the word like that, it is usually cut off, so that you hardly hear it at all. And that’s your Japanese lesson for today!
Oh yeah, I know Ringu is a translation. I just like my comfortable bubble. Although I’ve never seen a dvd with RINGU on the cover except in North America. The 3 or 4 other versions of the cover, no matter where they’re from has always just been Tranlated “Ring”. Which only makes the my bubble more secure and warm. Like a womb, only right now.
But yes, anything that’s being released mostly or completely untouched [Attention: Dimension films] is a good thing… Yumm.
Silly Dave.
Ringu is actually the original title. It’s the Japanese word for Ring. The copy you’ve got (and I’ve got) is a British release that translated the title, which just amounts to dropping the U. The yanks put it back to the Japanese title to distinguish between the versions … and despite title irritation you’ve got to hand it to the folks at Dreamworks: they’re actually releasing Asian films without royally screwing them over in the process. No re-edits, dubbing or soundtrack alteration unlike other companies I could name. They’ve even set up an anime imprint to start bringing over quality Japanese animation at a decent price (millenium actress was the first release on that imprint) …
And anybody taht compares Tetsuo to anything other than Tetsuo (okay, maybe some aspects of Lynch’s work, but even that’s tenuous) is just plain stupid.