The Ring Collection

Discuss releases from Arrow and the films on them.

Moderator: yoloswegmaster

Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
rapta
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:04 pm
Location: Hants, UK

The Ring Collection

#1 Post by rapta » Wed Oct 17, 2018 7:40 pm

Image

In 1998, director Hideo Nakata (Dark Water) unleashed a chilling tale of technological terror on unsuspecting audiences, which redefined the horror genre, launched the J-horror boom in the West and introducing a generation of moviegoers to a creepy, dark-haired girl called Sadako. The film’s success spawned a slew of remakes, reimaginations and imitators, but none could quite boast the power of Nakata’s original masterpiece, which melded traditional Japanese folklore with contemporary anxieties about the spread of technology.

A group of teenage friends are found dead, their bodies grotesquely contorted, their faces twisted in terror. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima, When Marnie Was There), a journalist and the aunt of one of the victims, sets out to investigate the shocking phenomenon, and in the process uncovers a creepy urban legend about a supposedly cursed videotape, the contents of which causes anyone who views it to die within a week – unless they can persuade someone else to watch it, and, in so doing, pass on the curse…

Arrow Video is proud to present Ring, the film that started it all, restored from the original negative in glorious high definition and supplemented by a wealth of archival and newly created bonus materials.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
  • Brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative, approved by director of photography Junichiro Hayashi
  • High definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
  • Lossless Japanese DTS-HD master audio 5.1 and PCM 2.0 soundtracks
  • Optional English subtitles
  • New audio commentary by film historian David Kalat
  • The Ring Legacy, a series of new interviews from critics and filmmakers on their memories of the Ring series and its enduring legacy
  • A Vicious Circle, a new video interview with author and critic Kat Ellinger on the career of Hideo Nakata
  • Circumnavigating Ring, a new video essay by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on the evolution of the Ring series
  • Sadako’s Video
  • Theatrical trailers
  • Booklet containing new writing by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
  • Limited edition packaging featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin

User avatar
kcota17
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:05 pm

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#2 Post by kcota17 » Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:29 pm

Very exciting, here’s hoping it gets an RA release by them too. Anyone know who owns the US rights?

User avatar
dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#3 Post by dwk » Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:43 pm

I think DreamWorks released the Ring films in the US

User avatar
Boosmahn
Joined: Mon Sep 04, 2017 10:08 pm

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#4 Post by Boosmahn » Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:50 pm

More J-horror? Yes, please!

Arrow already has four: Pulse, Dark Water, Audition, and The Happiness of the Katakuris, correct?

User avatar
What A Disgrace
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:34 pm
Contact:

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#5 Post by What A Disgrace » Thu Oct 18, 2018 7:20 am

If any Japanese film is likely to get the deluxe treatment from Arrow (I'm thinking of the Argento limited editions, and the like), its this one. Very excited. I had a feeling they'd go after this.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#6 Post by tenia » Thu Oct 18, 2018 7:39 am

I'm hoping it will get a fresh master like Audition.

User avatar
rapta
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:04 pm
Location: Hants, UK

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#7 Post by rapta » Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:57 am

Boosmahn wrote:
Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:50 pm
More J-horror? Yes, please!

Arrow already has four: Pulse, Dark Water, Audition, and The Happiness of the Katakuris, correct?
Yes, although obviously Katakuris is entirely its own thing. I honestly don't know whether to categorise it as J-horror or twisted family musical! I guess you could also include Battle Royale loosely under the J-horror label (it's at least horror in part).

Anyway, after all these from Arrow, Third Window and even Eureka (Cure), hopefully we'll eventually get Ju-On: The Grudge from someone. That one's my absolute favourite, and it'd be even better if they got the sequel and/or previous TV films.

User avatar
Big Ben
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
Location: Great Falls, Montana

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#8 Post by Big Ben » Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:03 am

I was only ever traumatized by Verbinski's version when I was twelve or so and I'll certainly defend that version. I'll be interested in seeing this version with all the fixings.

User avatar
jazzo
Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2013 12:02 am

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#9 Post by jazzo » Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:07 am

No slight meant to the original, but am I alone in thinking Verbinski's version was more atmospheric and successful than Nakata's? I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#10 Post by tenia » Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:13 am

I always liked Nakata's version (though I prefer Dark Water to Ring) and never saw Verbinski's version, but in the end, I definitely remember reading lots and lots of praise about it.
IIRC, The Grudge's US version isn't bad either (though I have seen this one and don't recall having been particularly impressed).

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#11 Post by knives » Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:25 am

jazzo wrote:
Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:07 am
No slight meant to the original, but am I alone in thinking Verbinski's version was more atmospheric and successful than Nakata's? I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
Nope, I definitely find the American version plainly superior.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#12 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:49 am

This is definitely great news. This would be another Tartan Video rescue, and as well as a long overdue upgrade to Blu-ray it would be great to finally see some extra features added to the film. Hopefully an interview with Hideo Nakata and lead actress Nanako Matsushima (and of course Hiroyuki Sanada and Miki Nakatani, especially if they want to go into all of the Ring 2/Rasen aspect of the alternate timeline sequels, which they both feature prominently in).

I quite like the US remake but mostly for Naomi Watts' performance and the excellent scene with the horse on the ferry that was added for the Americanised back story. I actually much prefer The Grudge remake for doing what I hoped would have been done with the Ring remake by keeping the origin of the ghosts resolutely Japanese, thus making the spread to all these freshly imported American actors even worse, because they're operating at an even further remove from understanding the situation! (The Grudge series is fascinating to me because it is both arguably 'flawed' by being incredibly iterative, but that iteration makes everything from the TV movie to the Japanese theatrical features to the US remake and its sequels feel like ongoing sequels to each other!)

Plus I really don't like the cursed video sequence from the remake which aside from a couple of important, but too tied into, the plot images plays out like some third year avant garde art student's Eraserhead inspired thesis film (lots of spinning chairs, propped up ladders and centipedes leaving tables without paying the bill for their glasses of water. The fly pays off brilliantly later on though, I'll give it that). While the video from the 1998 film still feels inexplicably weird and difficult to interpret whilst being a lot simpler with its imagery.
Last edited by colinr0380 on Fri Oct 19, 2018 12:06 pm, edited 5 times in total.

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#13 Post by swo17 » Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:53 am

How quickly we forget that Arrow's last Nakata transfer was an unwatchable mess

User avatar
Banasa
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2015 12:35 am

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#14 Post by Banasa » Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:16 pm

I'd like to think that Arrow took a break from J-Horror after the mixed image quality reviews on Pulse and Dark Water. They did a very nice job on Audition in my books, perhaps they were working on a plan get better material for Ring?

User avatar
rapta
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:04 pm
Location: Hants, UK

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#15 Post by rapta » Thu Oct 18, 2018 3:21 pm

I disagree about Pulse; to my eyes it looked a faithful transfer. It's also one of the most invaluable Arrow discs of recent years, extras-wise.

User avatar
Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#16 Post by Finch » Fri Oct 19, 2018 12:11 am

Always preferred Dark Water to Ringu but Arrow would miss a trick if they don't make the Limited Edition packaging look like a videotape, like Criterion did with Videodrome. Wouldn't get hopes up about a new master unless Arrow deemed the film worthy of a 2k/4k in house resto.

User avatar
Banasa
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2015 12:35 am

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#17 Post by Banasa » Fri Dec 21, 2018 11:50 am

Looks like they went all out on their Ring Box set.
LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
• Brand new restoration from a 4K scan of the original camera negative of Ring, approved by director of photography Junichiro Hayashi
• High definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations
• Lossless Japanese DTS-HD master audio 5.1 and PCM 2.0 soundtracks
• Optional English subtitles
• Bonus feature: Spiral, George Iida’s 1998 sequel to Ring
• New audio commentary on Ring by film historian David Kalat
• New audio commentary on Ring 0 by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
• The Ring Legacy, a series of new interviews from critics and filmmakers on their memories of the Ring series and its enduring legacy
• A Vicious Circle, a new video interview with author and critic Kat Ellinger on the career of Hideo Nakata
• Circumnavigating Ring, a new video essay by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on the evolution of the Ring series
• Spooks, Sighs and Videotape, a new video essay by critic Jasper Sharp on the J-horror phenomenon
• The Psychology of Fear, a newly edited archival interview with author Koji Suzuki
• Archival behind-the-scenes featurette on Ring 0
• Ring 0 deleted scenes
• Sadako’s Video
• Multiple theatrical trailers for the Ring series
• Limited edition 60-page booklet containing new writing by Violet Lucca, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Jasper Sharp, Kieran Fisher and Kat Ellinger
• Limited edition packaging featuring original and newly commissioned artwork
Also includes Ring, Ring 2 (Nakata), Ring 0 and Rasen. Wild!

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#18 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:40 pm

Fantastic! I will be particularly interested to listen to the commentary on Ring 0, aka the prequel film that overly explains the backstory and slightly revises the historical period of past events by having Sadako and company performing a period play. Which both helps explain Sadako's dress sense as well as allowing for an ending that is kind of a homage to Carrie.

This set looks as if it is really going to place everything in context, especially if they are including Spiral. The whole series has a really interesting backstory. Koji Suzuki wrote three novels in the series that all take place in different 'genres': Ring is of course the horror themed one and Hideo Nakata's film plays out similarly to the book; Spiral takes the form of a Robin Cook-style medical thriller with Parasite Eve parallels; and the as yet unfilmed Loop is a sci-fi take on the story of a scientist who has created a virtual world to explore the propagation of an apocalyptically cancerous disease that causes its victims to hallucinate before death in order to save his loved ones from the same fate. The scientist can jump into the simulation and view past events from the previous two books from different perspectives, which is both a novel way to create nostalgia for a reader and also quite similar to World On A Wire/The Thirteenth Floor.

Nakata's Ring and Joji (or George) Iida's Rasen, aka Spiral, came out quite closely together, though I am not certain if they were double billed or not, though this trailer suggests that they were. Spiral carries over Hiroyuki Sanada and Miki Nakatani from cast of the original Ring, who played the teacher and his girlfriend respectively. The story of Spiral involves the teacher who died at the end of the first film getting autopsied by one of his old school friends (I doubt it did, but I sometimes wonder whether this influenced the much gorier autopsy scene at the beginning of Saw IV! They are weirdly similar!) who resolves to understand the circumstances behind the death, meets the teacher's girlfriend, finds out the gory details about what happened to the ex-wife and son, and eventually inevitably watches the tape. Then things go into very strange Parasite Eve territory of the tape causing Videodrome-like cancerous mutations, but which actually might be the revolution of DNA in order to create a new being (i.e. reproduction and rebirth through unorthodox means!), which is something that an adaptation of Loop would have picked up on for its sci-fi setting.

Unfortunately Spiral appears not to have been that well received, especially compared to the runaway success of Ring. It kind of makes sense as it is the kind of sequel that completely throws out the tone and many of the main characters of the first film for something entirely different. It is also a very slow and talky film, even in its climactic scenes, and plays much more low key than the ticking clock, race against time tension of Ring. I do like it though, and it feels quite close in tone and eerie mood to the other film by Joji Iida that I have seen, Another Heaven (also about serial murder that encompasses suicidal thoughts, possession and transformation themes), which is also well worth tracking down, especially if you liked that Denzel Washington film Fallen!

So a couple of years later Hideo Nakata (and Nanako Matsushima again playing the main character from the first film though in more of an extended cameo this time around) came back to do Ring 2, which is completely unrelated to the Koji Suzuki Spiral material and instead takes the characters from the original film and furthers them in the horror genre with a newly created storyline. One of the things that makes seeing Spiral and Ring 2 together particularly interesting is to get the chance to see Miki Nakatani playing the same character of the teacher's girlfriend processing the events of the first film but in two entirely different narratives, almost as if they were branching parallel universes separate from each other! (She also gets quite a different kind of role in the events which occur in Spiral compared to Ring 2). And Hiroyuki Sanada turns up briefly from beyond the grave in Ring 2 as well, this time at the end (and a bit in the middle) rather than at the opening of Spiral!

And then Ring 0: Birthday is the prequel to the Nakata series, with the explanation of why Sadako became so grumpy in the first place!

(Fascinatingly Hideo Nakata also popped up to steer the US franchise by directing The Ring 2, so he has kind of rebooted the same material beyond its natural finishing point twice!)

I cannot tell if the other interesting part of the Ring universe, The Ring Virus, is on the set too but it would be understandable if it is not as that is, like the US film, a South Korean remake (with BAE Doo-na's first role!) rather than part of the Japanese series. At least with this set we get the core series and its what-could-have-been, faithful to a fault to the Suzuki series of novels sequel together in one package!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Dec 24, 2018 5:40 am, edited 8 times in total.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#19 Post by Orlac » Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:17 pm

There was a Ring TV series in 1995, would love to see that added if possible.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#20 Post by MichaelB » Fri Dec 21, 2018 7:23 pm

Added to a box set that already contains five features and a ton of extras?

What’s the weather like on your planet?

User avatar
Thornycroft
Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2014 11:23 pm

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#21 Post by Thornycroft » Fri Dec 21, 2018 7:27 pm

The 1995 TV adaptation was a single movie rather than a series, but would certainly make for an interesting inclusion. I wouldn't call it a good film, more of a curiosity, but by hewing closer to the original novel it serves to demonstrate how effective Nakata's adaptation is by comparison. The decision to make Asakawa a single mother in the 1998 adaptation results in a far more compelling protagonist than the generic impulsive young man at the center of the TV movie. The TV movie also retains Sadako's original origin story:
SpoilerShow
Whereas the 1998 film has Dr. Ikuma murder Sadako out of fear of her uncontrollable powers, in the TV movie she falls in love with a young doctor who panics when he discovers she is intersex. Sadako angrily tries to murder him with her psychic powers and he throws her in a well.
It also contains a fair few moments of jolting sleaze (an early sex scene goes far enough to require pixellation) and would likely bump the boxset rating up to an 18.

User avatar
EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#22 Post by EddieLarkin » Fri Dec 21, 2018 8:06 pm

This is David Kalat's first new commentary for a while now, no? Glad to see he's not completely retired.

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#23 Post by Drucker » Fri Dec 21, 2018 8:18 pm

EddieLarkin wrote:
Fri Dec 21, 2018 8:06 pm
This is David Kalat's first new commentary for a while now, no? Glad to see he's not completely retired.
Was just thinking about this the other day. Great to see him pop up again!

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: Forthcoming: Ring

#24 Post by Orlac » Sat Dec 22, 2018 4:30 am

MichaelB wrote:
Fri Dec 21, 2018 7:23 pm
Added to a box set that already contains five features and a ton of extras?

What’s the weather like on your planet?
Don't be a jerk, it was a bit of wishful thinking and helped stimulate a bit of conversation about it.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: The Ring Collection

#25 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Dec 22, 2018 4:35 am

I wonder if there is anything stopping Arrow from naming this "The Ring Cycle"!

I had not been aware that there had been a previous TV movie Orlac and Thornycroft! That sounds like another parallel between the Ring and Ju-On (The Grudge) series, as that also apparently had two TV movies before the two theatrical features were released. I wonder if there was a trend of having to provide a televisual 'proof of concept' for horror ideas before being given the opportunity to make a theatrical feature?
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sun Mar 10, 2019 8:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

Post Reply