Review | Sadako film review: Hideo Nakata gives J-horror classic Ring a reboot for the digital age, and it’s a noble effort
- Japanese director tries to recapture Ring’s creeping sense of threat by tapping into the popularity of supernatural online reality shows
- Film channels the chills of original film to a degree, and may yet help get this franchise back to its terrifying best
2.5/5 stars
In 1998, Japanese director Hideo Nakata created Ring, one of the most celebrated Asian horror movies of all time. An adaptation of Koji Suzuki’s chilling bestseller, Ring became a flagship for the Asia Extreme movement that swept the world, and a seminal example of J-horror cinema.
More than two decades on, Nakata returns to the well from which his lank-haired antagonist first emerged, hoping Sadako will repeat the terrifying success of the original. Updating the story of a cursed VHS tape, which kills anyone who watches it after seven days, the new film taps into the popularity of supernatural online reality shows.
Struggling YouTuber “Fantastic Kazuma” (Hiroya Shimizu) visits a supposedly haunted apartment, in the hope that his live-streamed antics will go viral, only to go missing after something interrupts his broadcast.
Meanwhile Kazuma’s sister, Dr Mayu Akikawa (Elaiza Ikeda), is caring for the burned-out flat’s former resident, a nameless young girl (Himeka Himejima) who has been suffering from amnesia since losing her mother in the blaze. Rumour has it that the latter (Rie Tomosaka) was a psychic, and believed her daughter to be the reincarnation of the murderous demon known as Sadako.