Ring 2 review and J-horror in Esquire

Jim Harper jimharper666
Sun Mar 20 07:36:17 EST 2005


As far as Nakata's horror films go I've always felt that they represent a progression in terms of themes and quality, from Ghost Actress to Ring to Dark Water. I'm not sure where The Ring Two will fit into this since it's his first horror movie without Hiroshi Takahashi but we'll have to see.
 
Even though I'm a devoted admirer of his horror films I'd be more than happy for Nakata to branch out into other genres in preference to producing weak horror movies. I haven't managed to see Last Scene yet, but I though Chaos was very good indeed. Hell I even enjoyed watching Sleeping Bride. He's clearly a skilled filmmaker with a fairly distinct voice of his own, and I'll be watching out for whatever he produces in the future, regardless of genre. I find it a little irritating that there are so many people out there who concentrate on his four main horror films and regard his other efforts as a distraction from his 'proper' films.
 
Jim Harper.

"J.sharp" <j.sharp at hpo.net> wrote:
But of course, whether the film actually is lousy or not is a moot point.
Horror is anyway a virtually critic-proof genre. What works for some might
not work for others. Take a look at the user comments on the imdb and you
can see that Ring 2 is hardly the disaster it is claimed to be.

I've not seen the film yet, but to be honest, I doubt its either markedly
better or worse than Nakata's previous works, which seems to be of a fairly
consistent quality. I know he is not a great fan of horror and would really
like to do something more challening, but seems at the moment he cannot
shake off his typecasting as a Horror directon either in Japan or Hollywood.
Lets hope he does just takes the money and runs and a few years down the
line he might make the type of films he wants to make. Now that will be
interesting!

Jasper




--------- Original Message --------
From: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu 
Subject: Re: Ring 2 review and J-horror in Esquire
Date: 20/03/05 02:26

>
> I was a bit suprised to see D'Angelo's by line on the Esquire piece, since
I'd never known him to be a champion of J-horror outside the more avant
guarde films like many of the Kurosawa K and Takashi films.. When I read the
full piece it made more sense, as he suggested that J-Horror films will
benefit from being remade by Hollywood. I'll have to ask him about that.
>  
> Nakata has said he's been looking for projects to do in Hollywood for some
time. I don't think which one really mattered as long as he got in the door.
That said, seems as if he can't shoulder all the blame for it being lousy,
as he took over an already troubled project in mid-stream, and he's been
there, done that.
>  
> -------------- Original message --------------

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