The Ring Cycle
Our Own Private Traps
“Is there
something unusual about Sadako?” (Kumiko Aso, “Ring 0: Birthday”)
Poor “Sadako.” Who can blame her for
wreaking such havoc across the “Ringu” films? “Sadako’s” monstrous
spiritual incarnation in Hideo Nakata’s “Ringu” (“Ring,” 1998) and “Ringu
2” (“Ring 2,” 1999) (with Rie Inou in the role of “Sadako Yamamura”) immediately
became a contemporary horror film icon. Her pale dress, awkward movements,
and veil of unkempt hair have been frequently imitated, but seldom bettered
as signifiers of the uncanny. “Sadako’s” distinctive appearance mingles
elements of both life and death, while her awful fate – lingering in darkness
for an eternity at the bottom of a well as the victim of both rejection
and brutal violence – invites a socially critical reading not as easily
found in typical Western horror fare.
Director Norio Tsuruta has obliged with an excellent
“prequel” to the “Ring” films, “Ringu 0: Bâsudei” (“Ring 0: Birthday,”
2000), whose screenplay was written by Hiroshi Takahashi – responsible
for both “Ringu” and a number of other prominent J-Horror titles.
“Ring 0: Birthday” travels 30 years into the past to uncover the origins
of the urban legend of “Sadako,” and tells her unhappy story as a young
woman, played by Yukie Nakama. It is “Sadako’s” film legacy in recent
J-Horror that is explored in this essay.
“Ring 0: Birthday” presents a sympathetic portrait
of “Sadako” as an essentially gentle and long-suffering young woman who
is as mystified by what happens around her as are those people who ultimately
become the victims of her psychic power. In complete silence, Yukie
Nakama conveys “Sadako’s” essential gentleness in a scene glimpsed from
afar. After discovering her ability to cure injury, “Sadako” bestows
this gift on an elderly man in a wheelchair. After she briefly lays
hands on this stranger, he rises from his wheelchair to the bafflement
of medical staff. “Sadako” is the innocent inheritor of her mother
“Shizuko’s” spiritual powers. Like her mother, “Sadako” is also condemned
by her special talents to be shunned and repudiated. Her estrangement
becomes a figurative and then literal death. Unable to adapt or seemingly
fit in, “Sadako’s” modest aspirations become mobilized as malevolent psychic
energy that kills by contagion. Although Nakama’s facial expressions
seldom stray beyond hurt innocence, the film implies that “honne” (genuine
inner feelings) might somehow find expression as an uncontrollable force
that could even kill.
Superficially, “Sadako” appears to embody the
essence of “Yamato nadeshiko” (the ideal Japanese woman). Her slender
figure, youthful beauty, modesty and innocence mask a desperate vulnerability
and desire for acceptance. Her pursuit of the arts, in the form of
joining a theater company, seems a natural expression of this. Acceptance,
however, is not so easily won, and the cast and crew close ranks against
“Sadako” who seems, somehow, different. As they begin in die in mysterious
ways, the “outsider” presence of “Sadako” attracts increasing suspicion,
accelerating “Sadako’s” own unraveling.
In “Ring 0” Yoshiko Tanaka plays “Akiko Miyaji,”
a reporter who is investigating the story of “Sadako” and “Shizuko.”
Only she possesses an inkling of how “Sadako’s” psychic powers might affect
others, and as “Akiko” watches “Sadako” perform in an on-screen play-within-a-play,
the stage is literally set for tragedy as the theater troupe decides their
only salvation lies in killing “Sadako” on the spot. Many of the
key elements of J-Horror are represented here – female protagonists, a
mysterious past, concerns about fitting in, and an investigative journalist
to put the pieces together.
This essay identifies various narrative themes
in contemporary Japanese horror influenced by “Ring,” together with consideration
of gender in relation to film theory constructs that have been markedly
influenced by the horror film. Contemporary Japanese horror films
that privilege active female protagonists will be identified. Four
broad narrative categories of contemporary J-Horror titles relative to
this theme may be discerned: “Ring”-inspired tales of women who are
forced to take investigative action against an uncanny figure, those dealing
with schoolgirls under threat, those dealing with grotesque depictions
of suffering, and more typical horror narratives involving unusual powers
or spirits.
