Ring (1998)
Few films can claim to have genuinely rewired an entire genre, but Hideo Nakata's Ring from 1998 comes about as close as anything released in the last three decades. Based on Koji Suzuki's 1991 novel of the same name, the film follows a journalist who begins investigating a rumoured cursed videotape linked to a string of unexplained deaths, only to find herself drawn into the mystery far more personally than she intended. The premise sounds almost quaint by today's standards, which is precisely the point: Ring arrived at a moment when Japanese horror was operating on a completely different wavelength to the slasher-heavy output dominating Western screens. It didn't need buckets of gore or jump scares assembled on a conveyor belt. It had dread, atmosphere, and a peculiarly Japanese relationship with the uncanny that felt genuinely foreign to most international audiences encountering it for the first time.
Nakata came to the project having built a modest reputation in Japan across television and low-budget features, and Ring was very much a mid-range production rather than a prestige picture, produced under the Omega Project banner with distribution through Toho. The budget was unspectacular, which in retrospect feels fitting: the film's restraint is one of its defining qualities. Nakata's direction is patient, almost clinical, favouring long, still shots and an unhurried pace over any kind of kinetic showmanship. The result is polished but unsettling in a way that owes more to atmosphere than technique. For fans of similarly measured East Asian filmmaking, it shares something of the deliberate, contemplative quality found in films covered elsewhere on this site, such as Yi Yi or On-Gaku: Our Sound, though Nakata's register is obviously far darker than either.
Leading the film is Nanako Matsushima as Reiko, the journalist at the centre of the investigation, and she carries a good deal of the film's emotional weight on relatively understated terms. There is a controlled anxiety to her performance that keeps the procedural sections grounded when they might otherwise feel dry. Alongside her, Hiroyuki Sanada plays her ex-husband Ryuji, and his presence gives the film an additional layer of quiet authority. Sanada has spent decades accumulating an international reputation, and even here in a relatively contained domestic thriller you can see exactly why: he brings a physical and emotional precision that anchors scenes which could otherwise drift into the abstract. Miki Nakatani and the young Rikiya Otaka provide solid support, and the ensemble as a whole feels committed rather than simply functional. For a film so concerned with the mechanics of its mystery, the cast ensures it never becomes purely mechanical. Worth noting too that anyone with a soft spot for late 1990s genre filmmaking might find interesting company in Macca's look at Hellraiser, another horror film whose reputation has been filtered through decades of sequels and cultural saturation, or indeed The Mummy from the very next year, which represents the other end of the 1990s horror-adjacent spectrum entirely.
I actually watched the American remake of The Ring long before I sat down to watch Hideo Nakata’s original 1998 Japanese classic.
Going into Nakata’s version, I was fully bracing myself to be just as utterly terrified as I was back then. However, what I actually found was a surprisingly tame horror movie. In fact, if I’m being entirely truthful, I’d go so far as to call it less of a traditional scare-fest and much more of a meticulous, slow-burn psychological crime thriller.
Instead of relying on relentless dread, the vast majority of the film’s runtime is spent meticulously analysing the cursed VHS footage and tracing its dark, tragic origin story. It plays out almost like a detective procedural, with the characters playing journalist and sleuth to unravel the mystery of the tape. Because of this heavy focus on investigation, it’s not until the really late scenes that the actual horror elements truly kick in. It is certainly unsettling and carries a wonderful, creeping atmosphere, but it’s nowhere near as outright scary as I was expecting it to be.
That being said, the film is anchored by some incredibly solid performances, with Hiroyuki Sanada being an absolute standout. As always, he is a brilliant casting choice, bringing a grounded, emotional gravity to the screen that perfectly balances the supernatural weirdness. You also cannot deny the sheer, monumental importance of the picture. It holds an iconic place in cinema history, single-handedly kicking off the massive J-horror wave of the early 2000s and influencing a swathe of future films across the globe. Its DNA is embedded in almost every modern horror movie you can think of.
However, when you look at it through a modern lens, I have to admit that it hasn't exactly aged like a fine wine. Still, it remains a highly watchable, deeply influential piece of genre cinema that is well worth your time. Ring might not be the nightmare-inducing classic I expected, but as a pioneering psychological thriller, it’s a thoroughly decent and important watch.
Ring occupies a genuinely odd place in the canon now. Its influence is so thoroughly absorbed into modern horror that watching it today can feel like hearing a song for the first time after years of living with the covers. The film launched a wave of J-horror exports across the early 2000s, fed directly into Gore Verbinski's 2002 American remake, and left fingerprints on a generation of filmmakers working in the genre on every continent. None of that historical weight makes it scarier on a Tuesday evening in 2024, of course, but it does make it something worth sitting with seriously rather than simply measuring against what came after it. As a cultural artefact it remains essential viewing; as a horror film, your mileage may genuinely vary. Sometimes the most important films and the most frightening ones turn out to be two quite different lists.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 1998 | Watched: 2026-07-06
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Ring (1998) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Arrow Video Amazon Channel · Shudder Amazon Channel · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Rent: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies · YouTube
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: AMC+ Amazon Channel · Criterion Channel · Philo · Shudder Amazon Channel
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Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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