The Ring film review

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THE RING

Hollywood is scattered with the long-forgotten remains of remakes of foreign films. Whenever Tinseltown decides to take a cult foreign classic and make it suitable for the multiplexes, every ounce of creativity from the original seems to be squeezed out. Critics and public alike still wince at such farragoes as the remake of George Sluizer's seminal thriller The Vanishing, a movie that terrified so many in its original Dutch form yet became close to a high comedy in the version starring Kiefer Sutherland and Jeff Bridges. Even though Sluizer himself directed the remake, there must have been an intolerable amount of studio interference.

Now comes another remake of another foreign film that had audiences the world over reeling when its grainy Japanese predecessor appeared five years ago. Ringul achieved mythical status when it first debuted and its subsequent success on video (perhaps the perfect medium to watch it on) has ensured it cult status in the ensuing years. Apart from America that is, where Dreamworks bought the rights and basically prevented the original from being shown in order to keep the surprise of the film fresh for its audiences. It was not only a ploy that worked commercially - the film took well over $100m on its release last year - but one that also hits the mark critically and artistically. It's that rarest of Hollywood birds: a remake that actually improves upon the original.

Naomi Watts (impressive in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive) plays Rachel, a single mother and journalist who discovers the strange deaths of a group of high school pupils and decides to investigate. It turns out that all of the students had watched an underground video - a short film in effect containing some very disturbing and far out images. Once watched, the phone rings and a mysterious voice tells the viewer that they will be dead in a week.

Obviously sceptical of such a ruse, Rachel gets her hands on the tape and sure enough once it has finished the phone rings. She has a week to find out where the tape came from, who is in it and just how the hell a video can make people die.