Ring 0: Birthday (2000)

directed by Norio Tsuruta

Japan

99 minutes

5 stars out of 5

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I've been burned by Ringu sequels many times, occasionally encountering ones that were so bad I couldn't finish them, so unfortunately that's the mindset I have whenever I check out a new one, since it never seems like they can match the quality of the original. But in Ring 0: Birthday, I've found something that not only matches the original film and builds upon the tone that it sets but may in fact be better than the original 1998 Ringu.

Ring 0 follows a human Sadako as she struggles to get past the trauma of her childhood by joining a drama troupe. I'm not as up on my Ring lore as I would like to be, so I'm not sure how much depicting Sadako as a normal yet stressed-out young woman goes against what was established in the first films. I also know that on a deeper level Sadako takes characteristics from older kwaidan stories, some of them folktales that have been in Japan for ages, and I don't know how well this movie reconciles a somewhat modern Sadako with her older origins. But I do know that this movie is a great case for the fact that dread is universal, and that even though it might not hold the same meaning to me as someone who never grew up hearing the specific ghost story that Sadako came from, I can still understand when this movie wants me to that something is terribly terribly wrong.

I'm surprised by just how terrifying this movie manages to render the prospect of having extra-sensory abilities like telekinesis and the ability to see the future, because the majority of movies about psychic powers tend to end up being goofy as hell. Ring 0: Birthday has its main character's brush with Fortean powers shown as something jarring, revolting; almost a body horror feeling.

I would argue that this film is frightening because it has an almost primal perspective on psychic ability: that the fear of premonition is an instinctual fear of violating the laws of the universe, which say people can't see the future, nor can they heal someone by laying hands on them. Regardless of whether one uses their powers for good or bad, the fact that they have them is an inherent violation of what should be true, and if you can do things that break the laws of physics, chances are the break isn't restricted to you. So I think a lot of the horror in Ring 0 lies in a fear for the status quo.

This film is dead serious where a lot of others use unnecessary screaming and inappropriate orchestral scores. It holds up incredibly well despite the 17 years between its original release and now. Hideo Nakata did a great job with Ringu and continues to do a great job with other movies, but Norio Tsuruta makes of Sadako not only the recognizable figure with long, thick black hair but also a deeply tragic figure whose fate was not under her control. And no matter how many sequels and prequels and loosely-associated films I watch, this is now my accepted version of Sadako. And I'll know from now on that she wasn't a child unceremoniously dumped into a well while either too confused or too young to fight. This Sadako fought hard, and it's the fact that she lost when she didn't deserve to that now casts a different light across all incarnations of her on film.