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Par kluseba le 27 Février 2020 à 19:06
Ring 0: Birthday is the fourth entry in the Japanese horror movie franchise but intends to be a prequel that explains the origins of the cursed video tape. The most important thing to know is that this movie isn't a horror movie. It's a teenage drama that turns into grisly tragedy at the end.
In this movie, Sadako isn't a hateful spirit thirsting for revenge to make its story known. The film takes place about thirty years before the previous entries. Sadako is a shy student who has just joined an acting group, quickly replaces the deceased lead actress and starts a gentle romantic relationship with sympathetic sound director Toyama Hiroshi. However, strange accidents and even murders start happening in and around the group. Sadaka is soon declared the potential cause and culprit. The sound director's selfish girlfriend Tachihara Etsuko in particular tries to harm her rival by any means necessary. The play ends in a disaster and things frantically spiral out of control from then on.
On the positive side, this movie is refreshingly different from the other entries in the franchise. It's an emotive teenage drama with pessimistic and optimistic anecdotes. Things turn more sinister halfway through the film when mysterious accidents and murders occur. The movie ends in an intense tragedy and especially the final third is particularly intense. The acting performances are stellar and the best so far in the franchise. The fact that the viewers discover a completely new side of Sadako here helps them empathize with the ill-fated youngster.
The obvious disadvantage is that anyone who knows the franchise already realizes how this movie is going to end. Despite some creative ideas, this film is by far the least suspenseful in the franchise up to that point. The film's first half slightly overstays its welcome and the side story of an investigating reporter is completely unnecessary.
In a certain way, this movie bares many resemblances to adaptations of Stephen King's Carrie. We meet a charming girl who only desires to be accepted, loved and respected but things spiral out of control when she gets pushed too far. If you like teenage dramas with a sinister twist, give this movie a try. Adults and horror movie aficionados might however have a hard time appreciating this unusual entry in the franchise which can be considered an acquired taste. Just as the controversial second entry in the franchise entitled Spiral, Ring 0: Birthday however deserves more acclaim, attention and time than it has received because it takes some experimental risks and should be considered everything but boring in the context of the franchise.
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Par kluseba le 27 Février 2020 à 19:04
After Ring's initial sequel Spiral was met with negative response, the director of the original film Nakata Hideo got back on board and quickly filmed this new sequel Ring 2. The movie is closely connected to the first film as several characters come back here. The protagonist and her son don't die off the screen as in Spiral but have vanished and appear halfway through the movie. Timid student Takano Mai isn't the secret lover of the deceased professor but rather his diligent assistant. She doesn't team up with a suicidal pathologist but rather with an investigative journalist to break the curse.
This alternative sequel has more supernatural elements than the rather scientific Spiral. It deals with telepathy, possession and exorcism and the movie becomes more daring in these regards as time goes by. After a sluggish start, the final third in particular is truly creative, intense and scary as it lives up to the original film's potential. The movie was met with critical acclaim, not only because its supernatural horror elements grasp the essence of the original movie but because they are executed with wit, pace and intensity.
Even though the creative, diversified and experimental Spiral might be the better film in itself, Ring 2 goes back to the strengths of the original film and redeems the new franchise among fans around the world. Without this movie, there wouldn't have been any franchise in the first place and that's why this film is perhaps its most important entry objectively speaking. While the first two thirds are of an above average quality, the final third is a definite highlight and those final thirty minutes are perhaps even the best in the entire franchise. My suggestion would be to watch the original movie first, followed by the experimental Spiral as a stand-alone film and finally the more conventional alternative sequel Ring 2.
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Par kluseba le 27 Février 2020 à 19:03
Spiral is a direct sequel to Japanese cult horror movie Ring and both movies were released simultaneously which underlines the franchise's experimental, fresh and groundbreaking approach right from the start. While Ring has been met with critical acclaim at home and abroad, Spiral has been met with mixed to negative reviews and has almost been completely ignored abroad. As a matter of fact, an alternative sequel titled Ring 2 was hastily shot and released one year later. Spiral was criticized for its unusual scientific approach to the genre, the introduction of completely new characters and the fact that the lead character of the first film and her son die off the screen and have no significant role in this sequel.
The movie focuses on suicidal pathologist Ando Mitsuo who examines the body of his deceased colleague Takayama Ryuji. He has mysterious visions while examining the body and finds a cryptic note in his colleague's stomach. He starts investigating and soon learns about the cursed tape that his colleague watched a week before his demise. Soon enough, his colleague's ex-wife and son perish in a mysterious automobile accident. Obsessed with the case, Ando Mitsuo contacts the shady boss of the deceased investigative journalist. He also gets in touch with his colleague's former student and secret lover Takano Mai. The two solitary souls soon develop a sexual bond. They are determined to destroy all existing copies of the cursed tape. However, they soon realize that things might be more complicated than they had initially anticipated.
While Spiral wasn't met with critical acclaim, it's certainly an underestimated entry in the franchise that innovates instead of repeating patterns of its immediate predecessor. The film finds the right balance between new scientific approaches explaining the cursed tape and supernatural elements that conclude the movie on an otherworldly tone. The idea to develop the quiet student Takano Mai into the professor's secret lover and sidekick of the pathologist adds much depth to the story. The protagonist is also quite intriguing and turns out to be a haunted soul who attempts to commit suicide in the very first scene of the film which is quite shocking.
Spiral has the same gloomy atmosphere and sluggish pace as the predecessor but differs in all other departments. The scientific explanations are baffling, the suicidal protagonist is rather creepy and the supernatural conclusion seems like an antithesis to the grounded introduction. The movie experiments a lot and not all ideas might end up working out. However, Spiral deserves acclaim and attention as it pushes an already experimental horror franchise even further. The movie is filled with stunning details that justify watching it on multiple occasions. It's certainly the most creative, daring and intellectual entry in the franchise. Ignore the surprisingly negative comments and revisit this forgotten gem of the Ring franchise to make up your own mind about this unusual entry.
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Par kluseba le 7 Février 2020 à 08:39
Terror of Mechagodzilla is the fifteenth and final entry in the Showa Era Godzilla franchise. It sees legendary veteran director Honda Ishiro, who had started it all twenty-one years earlier, return to direct the final film of his career. The franchise comes full circle here as it includes profound characters with inner struggles going all the way back to the first film.
This movie is basically a tragic tale of revenge. Scientist Mafune Shinzo had once been rejected by his colleagues for claiming that Titanosaurus had survived extinction in the depths of the ocean. Alien invaders contacted him and pointed out that they believed his story. With their technology and his ambitions, they managed to control Titanosaurus and make him a weapon against mankind. Alien invaders and the vengeful scientist are also repairing Mechagodzilla to unleash further destruction upon Japan. Marine biologist Ichinose Akira starts investigating after an Interpol submarine mysteriously disintegrated at the bottom of the ocean and rediscovers the scientists' controversial claims. He meets his daughter who wrongfully tells him that her father has died years ago but continues to be interested in the case and starts falling in love with the lonesome daughter. As it turns out, she actually died during one of her father's experiments and has been transformed into a cyborg by the alien invaders. She is torn between collaborating with them, helping her father and protecting her new lover and mankind. The daughter soon becomes the central element in an intriguingly detailed plot.
While the story is certainly one of the very best in the franchise, the fight scenes between the monsters are of an average quality. This is mostly due to the fact that Titanosaurus is everything but spectacular. Its first mysterious appearance in the opening sequence is quite intriguing but it disappoints as soon as it reaches the surface. Mechagodzilla is obviously much more interesting but its new version doesn't add any intriguing elements that would distinguish it much from the predecessor. Godzilla is obviously also involved in some battles and delivers the goods without shining too brightly. Had the monster battles been more intense, then this movie could have found its righteous place among the very best Godzilla movies ever made. As it turns out, it's a great but not an outstanding conclusion to the first era of the franchise.
Declining box office success and restricted budgets were the main reasons for the franchise to lay dormant for nine and a half years following this release. That doesn't mean that scriptwriters didn't have any ideas for further sequels with old and new monsters but the films simply weren't made. Terror of Mechagodzilla wasn't supposed to be the last film of the Showa Era franchise but it's a conciliatory conclusion in hindsight with the return of veteran director Honda Ishiro, a complex plot indirectly tracing back to the original film that had started it all and the fact that this movie doesn't leave any questions unanswered. Fans of the franchise should definitely know and watch this movie as well as its even slightly superior immediate predecessor. To conclude, the franchise's dormancy wouldn't end up being a bad thing because The Return of Godzilla nine and a half years later would turn out being one of the greatest monster movies ever made.
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