The Ring (2002) 
When I first watched this one during J-Horror's mainstream peak, with my shelves crammed full of Tartan Asia Extreme DVDs and my head full of pale juvenile ghosts with wide eyes and lank hair, I considered it nothing more than a pointless cash-grab targeted at dumb western audiences who want everything spoon-fed to them and can't/don't want to read subtitles and watch a film at the same time. I just assumed everyone else who had an appreciation for the subtleties and nuances that make up a lot of Asian horror cinema thought the same.
With time however, there emerged some positivity for this one and at first my young (then teenage) self bluntly dismissed anything positive that was aimed towards it, but that denial eventually gave way to bemusement and then finally contemplation, with the thought that maybe I had missed something the first time around and this one was worth another shot - the 'three stages of re-appraisal' if you will.
Revisiting it for the first time in almost 14 years (with some trepidation I may add), but with a more open mind, I must admit that I didn't quite have the same extreme distaste for it that I did the first time around. Sure, it's clunky and awkward in places with some poor performances (I generally feel Eastern cultures and tales when transposed into more Westernised templates never quite gel right and should therefore be not cut to fit in the first place so films such as this never resonate very well with me irrelevant of how well they are executed), but there is no mistaking that Verbinski did at least try to create something with a little style and substance to it. A great deal of the eeriness and terror, which made the original work so well has dissipated, but instead we have more well-rounded characters and an interesting spin on the material rather than a straight scene-by-scene remake.
However, despite a more positive (i.e. +neutral-) reaction this time around, overall if you’re after watching a film of this ilk, I'd just advise that you stick to Nakata's original which utilises the source material and themes far more effectively than this one does, irrespective of how hard it tries.
44/100