Franchises: The Ring. Ring 2 (1999)

On January 31st, 1998, Ring and Spiral were both released in Japan, with Ace Entertainment and the Kadokawa Corporation hoping that doing so would maximize their profits. Their gamble worked halfway; Ring became a monster hit, whereas Spiral was critically panned and ended up a commercial failure. In response, the producers, rather than going ahead with an adaptation of the third Ring novel, Loop (which itself was published in 1998), decided to bring back original director Hideo Nakata and screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi to make this, selling it as the "true" sequel and wiping Spiral out of existence. It paid off for them commercially, as when it was released less than a year later, Ring 2 was another big hit. However, it wasn't as well-regarded by critics and it's not that hard to see why. Even though it has the same director and screenwriter, Ring 2 is nowhere close to the level of the first one. Just like how Spiral made Sadako's curse much more complicated than necessary, with all of its wacko medical and sci-fi elements, this film does so with an emphasis on spirit photography and parapsychology, culminating in what can only be described as a modern age version of an exorcism. It's also not as effectively atmospheric or creepy as the first one, and the first two acts tend to drag, as you're waiting for the characters to catch up on what you already know. That said, the acting is solid, the film does still have some shocking and freaky moments and images all its own, and unlike Spiral, it feels much more like a continuation, like the first film is still going, so it's definitely a mixed bag.

Following the exhumation of her body from the well in Izu, Sadako Yamamura is identified when her only living relative, her mother's cousin, Takashi, is brought in by the police. Only needing to hear the details of her resting place to confirm it, Takashi asks that her body be cremated but Detective Omuta says they can't, due to the strange circumstances of the case. He tells him of Ryuji Takayama's death and the disappearance of Reiko Asakawa, adding that, according to the autopsy, Sadako died only two years before at the most, despite having been thrown into the well thirty years ago. Meanwhile, Mai Takano, Ryuji's university student and assistant, visits Reiko's news office and meets her colleague, Okazaki, who tells her they haven't been able to contact her. They get the landlord to let them into Reiko's apartment and find, among other things, a burnt up videotape in the bathtub. While they're there, the police call: Reiko's father has been found dead. Investigating the scene, Omuta is shocked by the expression on the dead man's face, and finds evidence that he was trying to copy a videotape. At the same time, Okazaki learns that Reiko and Ryuji's young son, Yoichi, hasn't been at school for the past ten days. Omuta visits Mai, tells her about the death of Reiko's father and the discovery of Sadako's body, the face of which is being reconstructed, and asks her to call him if she learns anything else about Reiko. Okazaki, continuing to research the urban legend about the cursed videotape, interviews a high school student named Kanae Sawaguchi, who claims to have access to a copy. He meets back up with Mai and tells her about Tomoko Oishi, Reiko's late niece, as well as her friend, Masami Kurahashi, who's been in a mental hospital ever since she witnessed Tomoko's death. They go to see her, only to learn she hasn't spoken since then and has a fear of television. They meet with her doctor, Kawajiri, who's also a paranormal researcher, investigating the phenomenon of spiritual photography. Mai discovers that Masami has been influenced by Sadako, and she's not the only one. Mai soon meets Yoichi and Reiko and learns that the boy now has an even stronger and potentially lethal connection to the vengeful spirit.

After the release of Ring, Hideo Nakata's dream project, the documentary Joseph Losey: The Man with Four Names, was released. Not long after that was when he and screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi were brought back to create Ring 2. While they had a lot of creative freedom with Ring, to the point where they removed the sci-fi elements from the original novel, here, they had absolute carte blanche, as they weren't adapting anything. But, while the movie is still certainly well-made, I don't think that total control was necessarily a good thing, especially since they didn't have an already existing framework to draw from, given its many flaws. Regardless, after the success of Ring 2, Nakata got to break away from horror to do a romance film called Sleeping Bride but promptly went back into the genre to make Take It and then, in 2002, made one of my personal favorite J-horror films, Dark Water (I enjoy it more than any of the Ring films). He made one more film in the world of Ring, when he was hired by DreamWorks to make The Ring Two, the sequel to the hit American remake of the first film. But because of a lot of interference from the studio, he hasn't made another Hollywood movie.

Over the course of the three films, the character of Mai Takano (Miki Nakatani) has gone from having a bit part in Ring to being a co-star in Spiral and, finally, as the full-on protagonist here. But, while Spiral had her telling Ando about the cursed videotape and Reiko and Ryuji's interest in it, here we start with her appearing at Reiko's news office, asking for her, and knowing very little about it, save for when Reiko asked her if Ryuji mentioned anything about a tape when she found him. She learns a little bit about it when she overhears Reiko's interviews with the high school students on the urban legend, and when Reiko's colleague, Okazaki, tells Mai they can't contact her, the two of them go to her apartment. There, they find a television that looks like it's been smashed, as well as the burnt husk of a videotape in the bathtub. The sight of the humanoid burn mark the tape is stuck in causes Mai to vomit, and she then has a vision of Reiko begging her father for forgiveness for showing him the tape, the first hint that Mai is herself psychic. She also begins having visions of Yoichi mouthing something to her, and that night, Detective Omuta visits her and tells her more about the case, specifically about Sadako Yamamura and the recent discovery of her remains. The way he nonchalantly goes into the grisly details, talking about how Reiko's father was found with the same horrific expression on his face as Ryuji and that Sadako ripped off her fingernails while trying to climb out of the well, badly upsets Mai and she makes Omuta leave. He casually goes of his own accord, asking her to contact him if she learns anything about Reiko. Meeting back up with Okazaki, she learns about the four students who first watched the videotape and Masami Kurahashi, who's been institutionalized ever since she witnessed Tomoko's death. They go to the institution and meet Dr. Kawajiri, who reveals himself to be a paranormal investigator and shows them a series of pictures of Masami with strange images overlaid on them, which he calls spirit photography. Mai then witnesses a more extreme case of this phenomenon when Masami goes out to the lounge area and images from the videotape appear on the TV set when she gets close to it. In the midst of the panic this causes, Mai touches Masami's hand and sees what she witnessed at Tomoko's house that landed her in the asylum. Masami is taken away, and as she desperately begs for Mai to help her, she realizes Yoichi was mouthing the exact same thing in her visions of him. Following this, Mai advises Okazaki not to continue investigating the tape, a warning he doesn't heed.

Naturally, Mai's interest in finding Reiko and Yoichi is because she wants to learn what happened to Ryuji. Unlike Spiral, where they were said to be lovers, here it seems like they were just a very close student and pupil, with Mai feeling he was the only one she could confide in about her psychic abilities. As with him, having these abilities can be a burden for her, and she remembers when he told her, "You'd better not tell anybody about it. Such power you've got, it's no use to anyone." The day

after the incident with Masami, Mai senses something and follows it to a mall near a train station, where she finds Yoichi, as well as meets Reiko. Concerned about how, like Masami, Yoichi isn't speaking, Mai begins visiting the kid, worried that he might end up like her. Eventually, Reiko asks Mai to speak with Kawajiri about Yoichi, but when she goes to see him, she witnesses an experiment to transfer the psychic energy within Masami onto a blank tape, leading to the cursed videotape's images appearing on the screens. Mai

destroys the recording equipment and the tape, then learns of the source of the tape: Sadako and the thoughts she projected while trapped in the well for thirty years. Unfortunately, Omuta, who also witnessed the experiment and is horrified by how lethal Sadako's power is, forces Mai to tell him where Yoichi is when Kawajiri suggests he may be like Masami. When Reiko and Yoichi arrive at the station, Mai uses her psychic abilities to tell Yoichi to run, only for him to, instead, show he now has lethal powers akin to Sadako. Their escape attempt results in Reiko's death, after which Mai takes Yoichi and flees with him to Oshima Island. There, she hopes to get to the bottom of the mystery of Sadako, and ends up playing a major part in an attempt to exorcise her influence over Yoichi.

Many characters from Ring return in this film, but none are as significant as Yoichi (Rikiya Otaka) and Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima). Though they don't make their first true appearance until almost 35 minutes in, they're already a major focus of the story, as both Mai and the police are searching for them to learn the truth about the deaths of Ryuji and Koichi Asakawa, Reiko's father. While in their old apartment, Mai has a vision of Reiko tearfully apologizing to her father,

adding, "This is to save Yoichi," and she later has another one, this one of Yoichi mouthing something to her. However, it's only after she sees Masami in the institution, where she begs for her help, that Mai realizes Yoichi was saying the same thing. The next day, a strange sensation leads her to the kid, who's seemingly by himself in a shopping mall and unable to speak. She also meets Reiko and accompanies them back to a smaller, sparser house they're now staying in, hiding out from the police and everyone. Mai tells Reiko about Masami and what happened at the institution, suggesting the same thing could happen to Yoichi. Distraught, Reiko yells at Mai that she's not going to lock Yoichi up and that it's none of her business. But, once she calms down, she allows Mai to visit Yoichi now and then. During one visit, she asks him why he ran away from the house that day she met him, but all he does is write, "THE WOMAN WITH LONG HAIR." Reiko then tells Mai that, after she and Yoichi returned from her father's home, his psychic powers, which he was hinted at having like his father, became much stronger and more frightening, powering on a television set when Yoichi went near it. Worried, she asks Mai to see if Dr. Kawajiri can do anything about it. But when she goes to see the doctor, Detective Omuta, after witnessing Kawajiri's attempt to transfer the psychic energy inside Masami onto a videotape, and learning that Yoichi is probably like Masami, forces her to give up Reiko and Yoichi's whereabouts.

Once they're brought to the police station, Mai uses her psychic powers to tell Yoichi to run for it. He does much more than that, however. First, he regains his voice. Second, he demonstrates just how dangerous his abilities have become when he uses his mind to blast Omuta and a female officer to the floor. Omuta calls Yoichi a monster, which causes Reiko to remember the vision of Shizuko and Sadako Yamamura being treated as such when the public demonstration of the former's powers

went horribly awry. She tries to escape with her son, but while trying to cross the street, she ends up in a vision where she becomes separated from him. She comes across her father, who says, "Didn't we save Yoichi? The boy you're holding is not Yoichi anymore," and she's then killed when she's hit by a bus, right in front of Yoichi. He tries to kill Omuta out of retaliation but Mai stops him and the two of them escape, making their way to Oshima Island and the inn run by the Yamamura family. While staying there, Mai asks Yoichi not to attack anyone

like that again, and when she tells him she's on his side, he agrees. But that night, when Dr. Kawajiri arrives, both he and Mai see just how potent the kid's psychic projections are, as they see apparitions of both Sadako and Shizuko reenacting one of the scenes from the video, the result of a nightmare Yoichi has. The next day, Kawajiri uses the same test he did on Masami to find out just how potent Yoichi's power is, and the result proves to be far stronger and, thus, concerning. Kawajiri explains that Yoichi's anger summons Sadako, and that he's going to try to transfer her energy out of him. Mai volunteers to act as psychic conduit through which to expel the energy but, in the end, both she and Yoichi are forced to face Sadako, as well as their respective fear, on their own.

At first, it seems like Okazaki (Yurei Yanaga), Reiko's colleague and assistant director of the documentary she was making, is going to be a co-star to Mai. When she comes by the news office to speak with Reiko, Okazaki informs her that they haven't been able to contact her lately. Mai, in turn, tells him of Ryuji's death and they go to Reiko's apartment. Inside, they find the living room a wreck, as well as a badly burned videotape in the bathroom and the photos of the four students who

first watched the tape. Okazaki decides to see if he can find Yoichi but, before they leave the apartment, they get a call from the police saying that Reiko's father has been found dead. They don't have any luck with Yoichi, as Okazaki learns from the school that he hasn't been there for over two weeks, and they go their separate ways, Okazaki promising to call Mai if he learns anything else. He also goes back to completing the report, interviewing a high school student named Kanae Sawaguchi (Kyoko Fukada), who tells him of a group of friends who have the tape and says she can get a copy for him. In the middle of this interview, Mai drops by and Okazaki tells her of Reiko's interest in the four teenagers in the photographs, as well as of Masami Kurahashi and her connection to one of the victims. They go to the psychiatric hospital where she's being held and meet with Dr. Kawajiri, learning of his interest in the paranormal. After what happens there, Mai warns Okazaki not to continue with the report but he refuses, and she, in turn, refuses to tell him if Masami said anything significant. Okazaki does receive a copy of the tape from Kanae, who reveals that she watched it out of curiosity the night before. She fearfully asks Okazaki to promise that he'll watch it and he says he will, adding that there's no point if he doesn't.

From here on out, Okazaki starts to develop his own problems, as well as prove himself to be a coward and an unintentional snitch. Despite his promise to Kanae, he puts the tape in his desk drawer. Later, it's revealed he told Detective Omuta about Masami, which led him to Kawajiri, who tells him that Mai has met Reiko and Yoichi. Along with Mai and Omuta, Okazaki witnesses Kawajiri's attempt to transfer the energy within Masami onto a videotape, only for images from the cursed tape

to appear on the monitors. After that, Okazaki returns to his office and learns Kanae has been calling him, panicked that her deadline is approaching soon. He calls her and lies to her, saying he watched the video, which gives her a false sense of relief. In their conversation, she reveals she threw her copy of the tape away, and implores him to show his to someone else, saying she doesn't want him to die. He just says, "I know," and after she hangs up, he puts the tape back into his drawer and locks it. Later that night, Kanae,

naturally, dies from the curse, while Okazaki goes about trying to erase her interview... only to find he can't. He tries and tries, until her image on the screen becomes distorted and nightmarish, then turns into a long-haired ghost like Sadako and looks right at him, causing him to scream in terror. At the end of the movie, you learn he's now in the institution. While his office is being cleared out, and his drawer is unlocked, a nurse at the asylum takes a photo of him. Appearing to fear what might happen, he initially looks away from the camera, but she does get him to cooperate. When the nurse leaves, she sees something on the developing Polaroid that shocks her, while the movie's last shot shows that Okazaki isn't alone; Kanae's vengeful spirit has come to make him pay.

Two movies after we first learned she was institutionalized following her best friend's death, we finally get to catch up with poor Masami Kurahashi (Hitomi Sato). Having not spoken since arriving, she tends to stay in her room and doesn't go out to the lounge area with the other patients, as she's terrified of the TV set there. During Mai and Okazaki's meeting with Dr. Kawajiri, a nurse convinces her to come out this one time, promising to bring a screen to block her view of the TV. Mai happens to walk out of the meeting and sees the nurse walking Masami past the area, pushing the screen alongside her. But, Masami seems to find herself drawn to the TV and walks towards it. At first, everything is fine, but then, she appears to be hit by pain in her right temple, followed by the image on the TV screen becoming distorted and replaced by that of Sadako crawling out of the well. This frightens and disturbs the other patients, and as the nurses and orderlies try to get them under control, Mai sees Masami reaching for her. She takes her hand and sees what she witnessed the night Tomoko died: Sadako standing in the kitchen and looking right at her. Masami is taken away, yelling for Mai to help her, the first time she's spoken since that happened. Later, Kawajiri tries an experiment meant to remove Sadako's nensha energy from her. This results in imagery from the cursed videotape being recorded, as well as Masami seemingly passing out. She's never seen again after that, leaving her ultimate fate unclear. However, Okazaki seems to be in her room at the end of the movie, suggesting that she died from the stress of the experiment.

Dr. Kawajiri (Fumiyo Kohinata) is a character whose motivations are in a bit of a gray area. When Mai and Okazaki first meet him at the mental institution, he introduces himself both as a typical doctor and a paranormal researcher. He shows them a series of photos of Masami that were taken when she arrived, which have a strange image in them, gradually revealed to be the towel-headed man from the videotape. He explains the concept of spirit photography to them, then shows them a series of photos that came about when she simply held some film, the last of which has the kanji "Sada" spelled on it. During this conversation, Kawajiri is revealed to have known Ryuji, whom he says was the only one who would listen to his theories, though not without criticism. Despite this, Mai notes how he didn't attend Ryuji's funeral, a fact that disgusts her. Regardless, at Reiko's urging, Mai later returns to Kawajiri to see if he can help Yoichi, only to witness an experiment to channel the energy within Masami onto a videotape. Mai tries to stop this, warning of the danger, but Kawajiri tells her, "Even if there is such a video, videos don't kill people. Fear kills. If I can prove this, we can eliminate the energy of fear. Fear the fear." He then goes through with the experiment, resulting in the images from the cursed videotape appearing on the monitor and Masami losing consciousness. Kawajiri is enraged when Mai smashes the video equipment and destroys the recording, and later shares with Detective Omuta his research on Sadako and her creation of the tape. He also suggests that Yoichi might've become like Masami, leading to Omuta's interest in him. During the third act, Kawajiri tracks Mai and Yoichi to Oshima Island, where he witnesses how Yoichi is able to conjure up the ghosts of both Sadako and her mother due to simply having a nightmare. Measuring the kid's psychic power and finding it to be much stronger than Masami's, Kawajiri decides to transfer all of it into a swimming pool, as it can only be funneled into fresh water (so, either chlorine isn't an inhibitor or Japanese pools don't use it). During the experiment, he tries to provoke Sadako's energy to come forth by getting Yoichi angry about his parents' death. However, it works too well, as Kawajiri himself falls under the influence and jumps into the water while holding some electrical equipment, killing both himself, his assistant when she tries to stop him, and Takashi Yamamura.

Detective Omuta (Kenjiro Ishimaru) is a part of the story from the very beginning, investigating the strange case, which gets even stranger when Reiko's father is found dead. Arriving on the scene, he's quite shocked when he sees the expression on the man's face, later describing it as identical to Ryuji's. Looking through the home and finding a note meant for Reiko, he becomes all the more determined to find her. He visits Mai at her apartment because of her connection to Ryuji, asking her if she knows about Shizuko, Sadako, and Dr. Ikuma, then goes into gruesome detail about the case in an attempt to get her to talk. He tells her how Koichi Asakawa, "Died the same way as Mr. Takayama," and, ignoring her asking him to leave, goes on to say, "They found the body in the well. An unidentified woman who died one or two years ago. But the well has been sealed with concrete for thirty years. Can you believe that? In the dark well, for thirty years. Neither of her hands had nails. They were all found in the sides of the well. Probably, she tried to climb out so many times..." Mai yells for him to go and, this time, Omuta does as she asks, but leaves her his card, asking her to contact him if he learns anything about Reiko. He also half-heartedly apologizes for what he did, adding, "This is such a strange case," then asks about the videotape, which Mai also claims to know nothing about. Much later on, Omuta has been led to Dr. Kawajiri and learns that Mai has met Reiko and Yoichi without telling him. Upon seeing the results of Kawajiri's experiment on Masami, and learning all there is to know about Sadako, Omuta demands that Mai tell him where Reiko and Yoichi are. When she refuses, he goes as far as to drag her to the scene of Kanae Sawaguchi's death and show her the girl's frightening death expression. That gambit does work, but when Reiko and Yoichi are brought in, Omuta is, twice, almost killed by the boy's psychic powers before Mai stops and runs off with him.

Like in Spiral, Ryuji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada), despite having been killed at the end of Ring, is still a part of the story, albeit in a much smaller manner. He mainly appears in flashbacks between himself and Mai, with the two of them meeting up on a bench in a plaza, saying he's able to concentrate better out there. Most significantly, we see a flashback where he tells Mai it's best she not reveal her psychic powers to anyone else, knowing the burden they can put on one's life. Late in the movie, as she and Yoichi head to the ferry to Oshima Island, Mai has a vision where she hears Ryuji and Reiko's discussion from the first film about how the urban legend of the videotape got started. She even calls out to him, but when Yoichi, who didn't hear it, asks if anything's wrong, she denies it and they head on. At the end of the movie, Mai and Yoichi fall into the pool and awaken to find themselves in Sadako's well. After the two of them struggle to climb out and fall to the bottom, Ryuji's spirit intervenes. He tosses a rope down and appears at the bottom of the well, having saved Yoichi when he fell in. He gives him to Mai, then holds his hand and tells him to give him his fear. He has to force Yoichi to do this, but he does absorb the fear and, once he's done, tells them to get away and for Mai to not look back. As they climb up, he disappears back into the dark at the bottom, suggesting that he's doomed to spend eternity down there.

The first returning character you see is actually Takashi Yamamura (Yoichi Numata), Shizuko's cousin who tried to exploit her years ago. At the very beginning of the movie, he's brought in to identify Sadako's remains, which he's able to do merely from being told her body was found at the bottom of a sealed well on Dr. Ikuma's estate. Learning he's Sadako's last living relative, and upon seeing a scary vision when looking at her covered body, Takashi asks them to cremate the remains. Inspector Omuta, however, tells him that the autopsy proved Sadako was alive in the well for thirty years, much to Takashi's shock. Much later on, he's brought back in when they've finished reconstructing Sadako's face. When he's shown the result, he simply says, "It looks like her. Just as eerie," even though he originally said he hadn't seen her since she was a child. After they take a couple of photos, with a creepy image appearing over the face during each flash of the camera, Takashi is given the remains. On his way back to Oshima Island, he asks, "Sadako, why do you keep me alive? I made you and your mother into a freak show! It was me!" Overcome with guilt and grief, he stops his boat and decides to give her a burial at sea. But, after he tosses the coffin overboard, he seems to sense that this did nothing to lift Sadako's wrath. During the final act on Oshima Island, Takashi is mainly a peripheral character. There is a significant scene where, like Ryuji in the first film, Mai finds him sitting alone by the seashore. He tells her what he did with Sadako's remains, adding that Shizuko went off on her own to give birth to her and, Put her in the sea," only to appear with the baby in her arms the next day. He then shows Mai a seaside cave called the "Children's Limbo," saying, "When the water is high, it washes away all the unwanted." It also happens to be where Sadako was born. During the climax at the swimming pool, when the attempt to exorcise Sadako's energy from Yoichi turns frightening, her coffin appears in the pool. Seeing this, Takashi gets into the water and dives beneath the surface, telling her, "Take me, and kill me! Take me, and put an end to all this!" This does, indeed, result in his death, when the maddened Kawajiri tosses electrical equipment into the pool.

Like in the first film, Sadako is portrayed by kabuki actor Rie Ino and, also like before, despite the film divulging a tiny bit more of her past, she's kept a mysterious and frightening entity. But even though it opens with her remains having been recovered and her face undergoing reconstruction, her presence here feels much more diffuse due to the focus on those who've been touched and affected by her, especially in the case of Yoichi. While Dr. Kawajiri's procedures on both him and Masami are meant as a way of exorcising Sadako's power and anger out of them, and the climax has both Mai and Yoichi coming face-to-face with her in the well, her role in the story is kind of abstract. Some may say the same thing applies to the first film, as Sadako herself isn't identified as the source of the curse until near the end, but there was still a menacing presence that permeated that whole film, which I don't feel as strongly here. The same also goes for the curse itself. The videotape is still what the characters are investigating, as those influenced by Sadako cause images from it to appear on photos, TV sets, and video monitors, and both Reiko's father and Kanae Sawaguchi ultimately die from its curse, but it just doesn't feel as front and center like before. That said, there are parts of the story that make Sadako even more of a disturbing, as well as tragic, character. At the very beginning, you learn that she only died two years previously, at the most, meaning she was alive in the dark well for thirty years. That idea is horrifying for two reasons: the very thought of her being trapped in there alive for so long, and the further suggestion that she wasn't even human in order to have done so. Also, like before, it's suggested that Sadako's father may not have been Dr. Ikuma but rather something inhuman. Takashi tells Mai how she reappeared even though Shizuko claimed to have put her in the ocean after giving birth to her, and the cave where she was born has a very ominous atmosphere about it. Mai seems as though she's about to ask what exactly Sadako's father was, when a sudden gust of air suggests she'd best keep it to herself. And at the end, when Mai comes face-to-face with her, she solemnly asks, "Why are you the only one saved?", before dropping back down, as if asking why no one ever helped her to escape the well.

The urban legend of the cursed videotape is made all the more intangible and hard to pin down exactly, as in her interview with Okazaki, Kanae adds to it by telling him how someone supposedly acquires the video. Okazaki asks where the original videotape came from and she says, "I've heard that it's just there in the room. Everybody has some videos they can't remember recording. Among those tapes, they find a strange one." Okazaki asks how you know it's the tape and she says, "It's

obvious if you see it... I know someone who has it. They're scared, so they only show it among friends." Then those friends should've all died by this point. But, even though that last statement flies in the face of how the curse is supposed to work, it proves to be legitimate, as she gives him a copy of the tape and later dies from it. Also, her saying the tape simply shows up in a collection is akin to how Reiko first came upon it, as the man at the desk at Izu Pacific Land didn't recognize it even though it was among the tapes he had for rental. But that

contradicts the original source of the tape, the kid who tried to record a television show but ended up recording Sadako's wrath instead, which, as I said in my review of Ring, is never substantiated and could be just another version of the legend. In the end, while we learn that Sadako only died a couple of years before the story begins, we still don't know how exactly the videotape was created or how it began circulating around enough to generate an urban legend, maintaining its ethereal nature.

Sadako is just barely onscreen here, much less so than she even was in Ring, and unlike Spiral, her face is, once again, never revealed. We get an idea of what it might've looked like from the reconstruction, the face of which she wears like a mask when she appears during the climax, but we still never see her true visage. Still, if that reconstruction is any indication, then she was creepy-looking, with a face akin to Michael Myers' mask in that it's virtually featureless, with eyes that

are very narrow, even for an Asian. As before, when she climbs up the well wall after Mai and Yoichi, her movements come off as unnatural and fast. Finally, she, again, has no fingernails, her flesh is a disgusting pale color, with a lot of green mixed in, and there's green goop secreting out when she tightens her grip on the rope. It's only for a couple of seconds but it's enough to be both gross and unnerving.

Even Sadako's mother, Shizuko (Masako), reappears here, and not just in the one scene on the videotape. Significantly, when Inspector Omuta calls Yoichi a monster following his attack on him, Reiko has a vision of when the same thing was hurled at Shizuko following the demonstration in Tokyo. But her most memorable appearance is when Mai and Dr. Kawajiri see a vision of the scene between her and Sadako on the videotape, this time in reality and in the very room at the Yamamura Inn. Initially, it seems to be nothing more than a memory, but then, Shizuko senses Mai standing behind her and turns and looks at her. She hovers back behind the edge of the door and then peeks back out at Mai in a very menacing shot, before Mai uses her own powers to vanquish the vision.

Going through these movies, it's obvious when you get to Ring 2 that Hideo Nakata is back as director, as it looks and feels very much like a continuation of the first film. The visual style and cinematography is exactly the same, and like the first film, Nakata occasionally augments his mostly low-key, restrained direction with flourishes in the editing and look. When Mai has her visions about Yoichi, the sound cuts out for a few seconds, while Yoichi himself is noticeably lighter than everything around him. In the next scene, an establishing shot

of the outside of Mai's apartment fades to a closer one, then fades to an even closer one... and suddenly, it resets back to the first shot and quickly goes through the following two in very rapid succession, stopping when Mai opens the drapes in her window. Later, while riding the monorail, she looks down at the street below and appears to see a vision of herself walking over to meet Ryuji on a bench, revealing it's actually a memory of hers. The same thing happens later when she's sitting on that very bench, as you suddenly hear Ryuji's

voice, leading into another brief memory about. She then hears Reiko's voice call for Yoichi, leading to a moment where the sound dies off, save for a high-pitched tone that leads her to the boy. Like the first film, the flashbacks to what happened at Shizuko's demonstration are done in a grainy, stark black-and-white, as are various other visions, such as when Mai sees what Masami witnessed at Tomoko's house that night and when Reiko has a vision about her father in the moments leading up

to her death. Speaking of which, Reiko's death stands out as shocking in how sudden it is and also in the unusually large amount of bloody. Nakata makes sure to get a lot of coverage of the blood running out from under her crushed body and trailing across the concrete, including shots from above, from the side, and from behind Yoichi and Mai's heads as it runs towards them, all accompanied by the sounds of its streaming, as well as Reiko calling out to Yoichi.

Like in Ring, Nakata proves to be quite efficient at creating creepy images and shooting apparitions in a spooky manner. At the beginning of the movie, when Takashi is brought in to identify Sadako's remains, there's a moment where he's sitting down, looking at the covered gurney, when her long, black hair streams out from under the sheet, only to disappear in-between shots. When Mai and Okazaki investigate Reiko's apartment, they find the burnt husk of a videotape in the bathtub, sitting in the middle of what looks like a charred,

humanoid outline (I don't know if that's how it's supposed to come off but that's what it looks to me), which is really eerie. The expressions of the people who've died from watching the videotape never fail to be disturbing, nor do the reactions of those who see it when the audience doesn't. Mai's initial vision of Yoichi is also a bit unnerving due to the lack of sound and the ghostly way in which he's lit in contrast to everything else. As in the first film, we get some spooky examples of spirit photography, this time involving Masami. Dr.

Kawajiri shows Mai and Okazaki a series of photos taken for her file at the mental institution, only for an image to appear in the upper left-hand corner of each one. As the shots go on, it becomes more defined, ultimately revealed as the towel-headed man from the videotape. He then shows the result of Masami merely holding some film: four more pictures showing an image which, in the final picture, becomes perfectly defined, revealing itself as the kanji for, "Sada." Speaking of which, the

reconstruction of Sadako's face is fairly eerie in and of itself. You see it as a work in progress, which involves them superimposing pictures of various women over an image of the skull, and then, you see a guy sculpting around it, both of which are as unsettling to look at as the face is when it's completed. The cherry on top of that sundae is when they take some pictures of it before giving it Takashi and, for a brief moment during each flash, you see a freaky face appear. Mai is

also shown an old photograph of Sadako taken during the aftermath of the demonstration, with a grainy image of her standing just around the corner of the stage, across from Shizuko and Dr. Ikuma, which looks like a supposed real photograph of a ghost. And Nakata manages to make those shots of the blood running out from under Reiko's run down body look just as creepy and sad as they are visceral.

As for the ghosts, they're just as effectively frightening as before. The flashback to what happened to Masami at Tomoko's house is particularly creepy. Shot in that grainy black and white, you see her standing in front of door, knowing that something bad has happened to her friend, and when she peeks into the kitchen, she sees Sadako's hair-enshrouded face peek around the corner and look directly at her (something looking around a corner at you is a type of image that always gets under my skin). Immediately after

that, Mai goes home to her apartment, only to get a shock when she looks out a window in the back and sees a pair of pale hands holding onto the balcony railing outside. When she gasps and backs against the wall, it cuts back to show that not only is there nothing there but the window is closed. Later, Okazaki learns Kanae has become a vengeful spirit akin to Sadako when, following her death, he tries to erase her interview. First, he finds he can't erase it, and then, it keeps skipping back to a moment when she shook her head in fear when

he asked if she'd ever watched the video. Each time she shakes her head, it becomes more and more blurry, the image grows darker and loses its color, and it becomes more staticy. It gets to the point where her head shaking becomes a thick blur, followed by her head dropping and her hair growing long and covering her face. As Okazaki watches in terror, her half-hidden, distorted face looks right up at him and approaches the screen, scaring the crap out of him. That could be the

freakiest moment in the movie, but a close second is when Mai and Kawajiri see a ghostly vision of the scene from the tape where Shizuko is brushing her hair in a mirror, when Sadako appears in the doorway and briefly moves the mirror over to her before moving it back over to her mother just as quickly. This vision stands out from the rest because it looks like it's actually happening, with no distortions of the visuals, and comes off as a residual haunting... until Shizuko turns and looks at

Mai. She stammers, "You're already dead," and Shizuko floats back behind the wall and peeks out around the corner in a frightening manner (a cold chill went up my spine the first time I saw it). And finally, there's the ending where the now institutionalized Okazaki gets a visit from Kanae's spirit. It's done very simply: the nurse takes his picture, sees something frightening on it when it develops that we don't see, Okazaki senses he's not alone in his room, and the camera reveals Kanae's grinning ghost behind him, as the screen turns grainy black and white and we get one final close-up of her laughing face.

We get more interesting settings here than in the first film, which, save for the cabin in Izu and the section on Oshima Island, mostly took place within typical environments in the city. The film opens in a creepy morgue, and there are a couple of other scenes in crime labs, which is unsettling because of the aforementioned procedures they have to go through to reconstruct Sadako's face. There are many more scenes set in Reiko's former news office, which the filmmakers are able to make a bit eerie with Okazaki hiding a copy of the videotape

in his desk drawer, which his ignorant colleagues likely find after they unlock it while cleaning out his office, and the scene in the dark editing room where Kanae's ghost appears to him. The scene early on in Reiko's apartment is quite eerie, too, as it's so dimly lit and looks ransacked. Mai and Okazaki see that she apparently smashed the television with a small table, before they find the burned videotape in the bathtub. Later on, when Mai meets both her and Yoichi, you also see the place they're living in now, which is a small house

that's very sparse on the inside. All it has is a futon on the floor in one room for Yoichi, a "living room" that consists of a small table with a lamp, and a small spot beyond the front door that might house a little kitchen area which is never seen. Despite this, they do have a nice front yard where Yoichi can play around a bit, but it's still obvious they couldn't be picky since they're in hiding. One of the most naturally unnerving settings is the mental institution Masami is held at. As usual, it's a

bland, depressing-looking place, with white and gray-painted walls, long, claustrophobic corridors, and the patients' small rooms having nothing but a cot and two small, rectangular windows side by side. The lounge area where the patients sit around tables and watch TV is the only comforting room in the whole place, and even that comfort is fleeting. Although Dr. Kawajiri's office is pretty typical, you later see he uses a padded cell to perform the energy transfer experiment on Masami, hooking her up to his equipment in there while he and the others monitor everything from outside.

Like in the first film, my personal favorite setting is Oshima Island and the sea around it, both of which you get a lot more of. Even before we finally get to the island, we have plenty of lovely shots of the sea and the horizon as Mai and Yoichi take a ferry. But when we see Takashi give Sadako a burial at sea to try to appease her, the scene looks more overcast and feels more uneasy. We get more shots of the island's natural beauty, including Mt. Mihara, when Mai and Yoichi arrive and take a taxi to the Yamamura Inn. Speaking of which, we see a

lot more of that place as well, particularly the room where the scene on the video between Shizuko and Sadako took place. Reiko and Ryuji did find the room themselves in the first film, but here, we actually see a spiritual reenactment of that scene in the very room, and we also have a significant moment in the inn's big sitting room, where Yoichi shows just how powerful Sadako's influence on him is. But my favorite spot here is the seashore Mai finds Takashi sitting by, looking out at the crashing waves. Unlike the scene between him and

Ryuji in the first film, this one takes place at night, making it creepier, and as he and Mai talk, she hears a rustling sound nearby. He takes her into a shallow cave by the seashore, which he calls the "Children's Limbo" (at least, that's how it's translated on the Arrow Video Blu-Ray; I've also read that it's called the "River of Offering,"), and describes it as Sadako's birthplace. It's a pretty eerie location, with a shelf in the back containing small statues, as well as a lot of those small paper

pinwheels, which is what Mai heard. Finally, the climax takes place at a swimming pool that Kawajiri tries to use to disperse Sadako's energy. I don't know if this pool is meant to be at the inn or somewhere else on the island (it's awfully modern-looking for such a traditional, old-fashioned place) but it's definitely not a setting you expect in a story like this. But when things go awry, Mai and Yoichi fall into the pool and find themselves in Sadako's sealed well, which they're forced to climb out of with Ryuji's help.

Once again, this is not an effects-heavy movie, though you certainly see more makeup effects than you did previously, with all the blood that streams from Reiko's crushed body and the green goop that oozes out of Sadako, as well as in the reconstruction of Sadako's face, which she wears as a mask during the climax. Some effective physical effects are used for the instances in Dr. Kawajiri's experiments that involve water, as you see water running through these strips of paper and pooling out of them under the influence of Sadako's energy,

and they're also able to make the water in the swimming pool during the climax look effectively choppy, as if there is an unearthly force in there. Digital and video effects are used sparingly but get the job done, like when you see a frightening face while they're taking photos of Sadako's reconstruction, the unsettling blurring and shaking of Kanae's image when she becomes a ghost on the tape, and when a number of ghostly faces appear in the swimming pool. And speaking of the climax, there are some effective matte paintings used in the big wide shots when Mai and Yoichi attempt to climb out of Sadako's well.

But even with Hideo Nakata back at the helm, Ring 2, like Spiral before it, is a rather inferior followup to the first film. Even though the producers felt compelled to erase Spiral out of the continuity, this film suffers from a similar problem in that the story just isn't as compelling. In fact, they're kind of similar. Once again, we're now following some new protagonists, one being Mai Takano in an expanded role, trying to learn what happened to Ryuji, and the other wholly original, as they're having to play catch-up and gradually learn about

the cursed videotape and Sadako. Ryuji himself sporadically appears in both memories and visions of the protagonist and has a major part in the story's resolution. And much of the story focuses on a new aspect of Sadako's curse, this time in how those who've encountered her can absorb her psychic abilities and use them, ultimately leading into a final confrontation with her. I wondered if Nakata and Hiroshi Takahashi had looked to Spiral as inspiration when coming up with the story but, when I think about it, this story structure may just

be the natural direction to go when concocting a sequel to Ring. Too bad it doesn't make for an interesting continuation, and while we're on the subject of both Ring 2 and Spiral, I'd like to point how the problems with their individual story directions are just as different as the directions themselves. While Spiral suffered because, faithful to the original source material or not, its medical science aspects made it wildly in-congruent with the first film, Ring 2 has the opposite problem in

that it feels too derivative of the first and comes off as "same shit, different day," right down to the third act journey to Oshima Island, the characters staying at the Yamamura Inn, Takashi revealing something about Sadako to the protagonist, and the climax hinging around an attempt to save Yoichi. While that can definitely be an appealing approach to a sequel in some cases, it makes everything come off as tired here. It may seem like I'm contradicting myself over what I said about Spiral but, since I don't find either of these sequels' stories satisfying, I think it could be that the story of Ring doesn't lend itself to being sequelized.

Even though he managed to bring the same interesting direction to the sequel, and succeeded in coming up with more creepy images and memorable scenes, it feels like Nakata was mostly just going through the motions. It may have instances of suspense but it doesn't have the same overwhelming feeling of foreboding, constant dread, and impending doom as the first, likely because you now know everything about the cursed videotape and how it functions, as well as because the plot isn't as directly focused on either it

or Sadako. Knowing he's not really that big of a horror fan, I wonder if Nakata was enjoying the release of that Joseph Losey documentary after nurturing it for so long, got the call to do Ring 2, and rolled his eyes and was like, "Ugh, fine. Let's get this done." That's just speculation on my part but it does feel as though he wasn't as inspired this time around, especially from a story standpoint. That's another thing: putting aside its similar structure to Spiral and how much it takes from the first Ring, I just don't find the story itself

interesting. I don't care towatch some new characters pick up the pieces and try to figure out what we already know, nor am I interested in Masami and Yoichi becoming "infected," if you will, with Sadako's psychic powers, with the latter having the ability to potentially kill someone. I think I would've preferred an approach that delved more into the pain, fear, and sorrow Sadako felt when she died and led to the protagonists working with Takashi to finally lay her tortured spirit to rest.

However, I was initially going to say that the whole subplot between Okazaki and Kanae could've been removed, as it adds nothing but one last, albeit effective, shock. But when I think about it, I like the idea that, when those cleaning out Okazaki's office unlock his drawer and find the videotape, the curse will continue spreading, possibly with Kanae now acting as the vengeful spirit instead of Sadako. It gives it some interesting new dimensions, suggesting that any sort of wrongdoing can result in another entity like Sadako.

The scientific study of the paranormal was already a part of the Ring story in the first movie, but here, they delve much further into it with the character of Dr. Kawajiri. When Mai and Okazaki first meet him and he shows them the eerie pictures they took of Masami, he explains the concept of "spiritual photography" to them, how it's something within a person's mind that's imprinted on film by affecting the light and exposure. Due to her encounter with Sadako, Masami has inherited her abilities of "nensha," which sporadically come through

whenever she's in close proximity to film, cameras, or televisions, as seen when images from the tape suddenly appear on the TV in the institution's lounge area. Also, like how Reiko had visions and nightmares pertaining to the tape and Sadako's past due to her influence, Masami is likely able to do the same to others. When she encounters Mai and shows her what happened at Tomoko's house that night, it seems as though Masami is trying to channel her fear through her, as she begs her for help as she's taken away by the staff. Mai then

realizes Yoichi was saying the same thing in her visions of him. Speaking of Yoichi, when he first demonstrates just how strong Sadako's influence over him is, Reiko is also affected by the nensha, as she has a brief flashback to Shizuko's disastrous public demonstration decades before. (Consciously or unconsciously, Yoichi could also be behind the vision of her father that leads to her death.) Later, in an experiment based around energy transference, Kawajiri attempts to essentially exorcise Sadako's 

power from Masami. He demonstrates how it works by filling a beaker with water, putting the tip of a strip of paper into it, seeing how much it absorbs, and then has Masami concentrate on the beaker. After she does so, he puts the strip back in the water and it runs much farther up the paper. Kawajiri explains, "The water's changed. Some kind of energy was transferred from her to the water. It also explains the film exposure. It's all about energy transfer. Eventually, all the energy

should be transferred from her." He further explains that he believes this energy is that of fear and it's what kills, rather than the videotape. He then begins the experiment, intending to transfer the energy onto a blank videotape used for filming Masami. Sure enough, when she concentrates on the camera, the imagery from the video appears on the monitor, though she loses consciousness from this, while Mai destroys the tape. I'd assume they're now cursed from having looked at the images but it never seems to become an issue.

While Masami's nensha abilities happen at random, Yoichi, being naturally psychic due to his parentage, seems to be a bit more in control. His power proves much stronger than Masami's, as when Kawajiri gives him the water test, his energy makes the water go all the way through the strip of paper and pool onto the table it's sitting on. He's able to actually summon the spirits of both Shizuko and Sadako and have them act out a scene from the videotape, rather than merely imprint the images on film and television or in someone's mind.

However, the spirits are also self-aware, and it takes another psychic like Mai to banish them. In addition to the nensha, Yoichi has Sadako's frightening ability to kill someone simply by willing it to happen, which comes about through his anger. He nearly does this to Detective Omuta, and he's also able to throw him and another officer to the floor through the sheer force of his will. Because of the extent of his power, Kawajiri decides to use a swimming pool in his "exorcism,"

feeling there's enough water there to absorb and dispel Sadako's energy. The question I have, though, is how did Yoichi become influenced by Sadako in the first place? Reiko says it happened all of a sudden when they returned home from her father's house, so I figured, like Masami, Yoichi saw Sadako when he came for Koichi and being near her caused this. But it seems as though Koichi didn't succumb to the curse until just after the film's story began, meaning a week has passed since the ending of Ring. My only guess, then, is that it came about because he watched the tape and that, when the curse was passed to his grandfather, Sadako used what influence she still had over him in this way and was possibly strengthened by him being subconsciously angry at Reiko for stirring all this up.

Of course, the real answer could be that the filmmakers never really thought about it and decided to go in this direction just because. All I know is that I really dislike this parapsychology and paranormal research angle because, like the virus and DNA concepts in Spiral, it makes this whole thing so much more complicated than necessary, and takes away from the original notion of it simply being a creepy, supernatural curse that you can't escape once you're in its sights unless you're willing to sacrifice someone else. This talk

about energy transference and attempting to expel Sadako's energy out of Yoichi through the use of water doesn't work for me, even if it is keeping it wholly paranormal while bringing in a scientific point of view. I feel it kind of diminishes Sadako as a fearful entity if her energy can be transferred somewhere else, even if both experiments don't go as smoothly as Kawajiri expects. I also wish it was Sadako being more proactive in using her power through these human vessels to further her revenge,

rather than it being a case of their having accidentally inherited some of her abilities. If we were dealing with full-on possession here, I think I would've approved. It would've been like her rebirth in Spiral, only keeping it in the supernatural and thus, making it better, as well as raising the stakes, as it's now a battle for these people's very souls. And finally, like with the sci-fi elements in the previous film, I'm not entirely sure if I got them right. I simply interpreted them in the most logical way I could and from what I read from other, more official sources. So, if I got something wrong, I apologize. Maybe you can educate me.

Fortunately, the climax has Sadako basically spit in the face of Kawajiri's attempt to scientifically exorcise her. It starts once he and his assistant have set up the equipment, placing a cable down into the swimming pool. He explains to Mai that she is to act as a psychic conduit for the energy Yoichi generates and send it into the water where it's to be dissolved. Once it begins, Mai and Yoichi are told to go to their places. The assistant walks the latter to his seat across from Mai's, but when he gets to the pool's edge, he concentrates on it, causing it to

churn. A video monitor behind him picks up some interference, once again indicating the strength of his power, but Mai talks him down, reminding him that she's on his side. The two of them get into their respective seats, with Kawajiri placing Mai's hands in special holds on the chair's arms and putting a mass of electrodes on her head, while the assistant attaches some to Yoichi's cranium and forehead. With that, Kawajiri declares, "Let's start." He tells Yoichi to close his eyes and, "Remember what you saw. What did you see?" He closes his eyes and,

when he begins to concentrate, one of the monitors scrambles. As Mai watches, images of Yoichi's parents appear on the static-filled screen. Seeing this, Kawajiri tells Yoichi, "Yes. Both your father and mother died. You're all on your own. What did you see?" Yoichi opens his eyes and shakes his head, prompting Kawajiri to give him a cruel jumpstart, telling him, "Your mother died because of her," indicating Mai. "She betrayed her." Mai plays along, saying it was her fault, and Yoichi

looks at her, then partially closes his eyes. The lights in the room begin to slowly dim and come back up, and the imagery from the videotape appears on the monitor, accompanied by unearthly wailing sounds in the distance. Kawajiri notes how the surface of the pool is rippling violently and tells Mai to keep up her channeling. The imagery from the tape continues on the monitor, and when Mai looks to the pool, she sees ghostly faces floating amid the water. She warns Kawajiri, "This is... It's connected to the other world," as the doctor looks at her with an unhinged expression.

Meanwhile, Takashi, who's been observing this event, looks and sees Sadako's coffin appear at the bottom of the pool. As he watches, the lid slides to the right and Sadako begins to emerge. He gets down into the water, which is now extremely choppy, and swims to the coffin. Begging Sadako to take him as her final victim, he dives beneath the surface. At that moment, Kawajiri, under Sadako's influence, walks to the edge of the pool with electrical equipment in his hands. His assistant comes running, trying to stop him, while Mai,

seeing what's happening, removes the electrodes from her head and runs to help Yoichi. Just as the assistant rushes up to Kawajiri, he falls into the pool, electrocuting them both when she reaches into the water. Mai picks Yoichi up, but then the two of them fall back. The screen goes black, and when the picture comes back up, they appear to be lying on the ground, only for the camera to tilt and reveal that they're actually hanging onto the side of a rock wall, the pull of gravity shifting along with the camera angle. Looking up, they realize they're

in Sadako's sealed well. They try to pull themselves up, only for the ledge they're standing on to give way under their feet. Mai tells Yoichi not to let go, when he grabs onto her. His additional weight is too much for her and Mai loses her grip. They fall a few feet, with Mai grabbing onto another handhold, when Yoichi tells her, "Let me fall, and you'll be safe." Mai looks down at the dark water at the bottom of the well, which begins to ripple and churn violently, as the echoing voice

of the towel-headed man recites the rhyme, "Frolic in brine, goblins be thine." Mai tries to pull herself up but, when she can't, she tells Yoichi to hold onto the wall, as she can't support him as well. Yoichi shakes his head and she slips down farther, grabbing onto another bit of the wall. She, again, tells him to hold onto the wall and, this time, he does, but she still slips further. He calls her "onee-san," meaning "big sister," and exclaims, "It's enough! It's over!" He lets go and falls down into the water, disappearing within the murky depths. Horrified, Mai jumps down in after him and, surfacing, frantically searches around for him. Not finding him, she then backs up against the wall, hearing more frightening sounds, such as numerous voices speaking the rhyme.

Light filters down from up top and a rope drops down from the well's opening. She hears some rustling in the shadows in front of her and backs up. Ryuji appears out of the darkness, holding onto Yoichi, and tells Mai to take him. When she has Yoichi in her arms, Ryuji takes his son's hand and tells him, "Give your fear to me." Yoichi shakes his head and whines, but Ryuji grips him tighter and orders him to do it. After he yells for him to do so, Yoichi complies and goes through with it. Once Ryuji fully absorbs his son's fear, he lets go of his

hand and tells them to use the rope to escape. Mai starts climbing with Yoichi holding onto her back, as Ryuji tells her not to look back. He disappears back into the darkness, as they continue climbing. At one point about halfway up, Mai stops and makes the mistake of looking down. Sadako emerges from the water and looks up at her. She goes for the wall and starts to quickly climb up after them. Mai tries desperately to climb up as fast as she can, but Sadako quickly reaches her and

grabs onto the rope. She looks and screams at the ghost, who asks, "Why are you the only one saved?" Sadako lets go and falls back down the well, while Mai continues climbing and reaches the top, leading to her and Yoichi emerging from the pool. The two of them swim to the edge, near where Kawajiri and his assistant's bodies are, and climb out of the water. They look and see Takashi's body floating in the water as well, when Mai asks Yoichi, "You're not still scared?" He answers, "No. You?", and she says, "Me? I'm still scared, a bit." That then leads into the ending, where the drawer in Okazaki's office where he hid the videotape is opened and Okazaki himself finds he's not alone in his room in the institution.

Composer Kenji Kawai also returns from the first film and, just like with that one, he creates a score that mixes freakish electronic and screeching strings with moments of genuine beauty and emotion. He doesn't waste any time, either, as the moment at the beginning where Takashi sees a creepy vision of Sadako has those spine-tingling strings accompanying it. The opening credits, which are, once again, set atop a sweeping shot of rolling ocean waves at night, are scored to a far more bombastic and nightmarish piece than the first. There's a loud, gong-like sound when the title comes up, followed by wailing voices, noises that can only be described as sounding like they're from the depths of hell, and screeching and creaking strings. Like the first film, much of the first two acts are done with minimal actual scoring but, whenever something frightening occurs, you're hit with sounds that can be described as either downright terrifying or creepily atmospheric. Some examples of the latter are when Mai overhears a bit of Reiko's report on the videotape at the news office, when she and Okazaki see what's happened in her apartment (those sounds come off like hell is trying its best to break through into the real world, sometimes sounding like demonic breathing), the establishing exterior shot of Mai's apartment, followed by loud bangs in the sudden, sharp cutting to a close-up of her window, Dr. Kawajiri showing her and Okazaki the photographs, the moment where Yoichi writes, "THE WOMAN WITH LONG HAIR," and when they realize the extent of his powers with the water test, among others. The music is utterly frightening usually whenever you're hit with a freaky image, like when Mai sees a vision of Masami's encounter with Sadako, the imagery from the tape appears on the institutions television set, the moment when Sadako appears outside Mai's window, and, most frightening of all, when Kanae's vengeful spirit appears in the video footage right in front of Okazaki. Seriously, that music helps tremendously in making that last scene possibly the freakiest in the whole movie. And I'm sure that, like with the first movie, Kawai had input on the sound effects, as they use another unnatural-sounding phone ring, as well as plenty of ghostly sounds in key sequences, particularly the climax (I also recognize some of the wailing during that scene as sounds Biollante made).

The more emotional, orchestral music Kawai comes up with is, again, just as effective as in the first film. Mai's first memory of Ryuji is scored with a very warm, electronic bit that acts as a nice counterbalance to the cold creepiness the electronic and synthesizer sounds often evoke. He goes for a short action beat for when Reiko and Yoichi attempt to escape the police station, then transitions into a light, airy piece for Reiko's vision of her father, leading up to her death. The aftermath of her death, with her blood pooling and streaming towards Mai and Yoichi, is scored in a soft, sad manner, very much alluding to Yoichi's loss, then becomes monstrous and evil when he tries to kill Detective Omuta out of revenge. The loveliest piece of music in the film is the one that plays during Mai and Yoichi's journey to Oshima Island, which is this very wondrous, adventurous tune that's well suited for a journey across the sea. Finally, during the climax in the well, becomes totally orchestral for the moment when Ryuji has Yoichi give him his fear, turns momentarily frightening when Sadako climbs up after them, and then, when they reach the top and emerge from the swimming pool, we get a soft, lamenting bit of music that has the same melody as some of the other emotional themes, and comes off as ambiguous as to whether or not the terror is actually over. As for the song that plays over the ending credits, which is Kori no yo ni hohoende (I tried to find a translation for that but couldn't) and performed by Miki Imai, it's not bad. As usual, it doesn't really fit with the movie you just watched (it has lyrics in English that go, "Stay with me/Never let me go,"), but it's a nice Japanese pop song that's pleasing to the ear. But once the song's over, you get one last instance of creepy sounds and a loud blast of air.

Ring 2 is such a mixed bag of a film that, at the end of the day, it's hard for me to say whether or not I recommend it. The big question is, do I think it's a better follow-up to Ring than Spiral? I would say yes just because it keeps everything supernatural, but at the same time, it leads to the film feeling rather derivative of the first, right down to the climax. What's more, the story structure is similar to that of Spiral, with our new characters having to learn about what's happened before we can finally get on with the story, the emphasis on parapsychology bogs it down and, for me, doesn't work well with this story, and the feeling of dread that permeated the first one isn't nearly as strong here. All that said, the film is still well-made, with good direction and cinematography, the acting is top notch once again, you get more interesting locations and settings, there's a handful of well-done effects work, ranging from visual to makeup, the music score is really good, and the climax and ending are both well-done. If you liked Ring, I think you should check it out, regardless of what you felt about Spiral, but keep your expectations on the low side.