Recent Reviews
Asian Horror Series: The Ring Virus
By HammerFanatic
Feb 26, 2006, 21:14

The 1991 novel, Ringu, written by Kogi Suzuki, has had several film adaptations...Japanese, American and Korean. This DVD is the Korean version of the film, The Ring Virus. Directed by, Dong-bin Kim and starring, Eun-Kyung Shin (Sun-joo) and Jin-yeong Jeong (Dr. Choi).

When journalist Sun-joo's (Eun-Kyung Shin) niece dies, it's under very odd circumstances, the young woman died of an apparent heart attack, but she was found in her closet in the process of tearing her own hair out. In going through the girl's belongings, she comes across her pager with the cryptic text, 'Did we see what we're not supposed to see?'. Sun-joo then finds out that the friends her niece spent the previous weekend with are all the victims of fatal heart attacks. Sun-joo goes to the coroner Dr Choi (Jin-yeong Jeong), who feels the deaths weren't caused by anything medical, but rather a super-natural force. Sun-joo travels to the resort where her niece and her friends spent the weekend and there she finds a video and pops it in the VCR. The video has some blurred images and text and the last thing on the video is a warning that whoever watches this video will die in exactly one week's time. The video then goes on to offer some hope.....'If you want to live....' and then the tape cuts off at that point. Sun-joo feels the only person that she can trust to show the tape to is Dr Choi and so he watches the video, as well. The two decide their only hope of survival is to join forces and figure out the clues of the video before their time runs out.

OK, I've done some research on this title and it seems this is a Korean/Japanese co-production and not so much a remake of the very popular Japanese film, Ringu, but rather a retelling of the story. So, if anything you've read regarding the synopsis of this film sounds familiar, that's why. When I first put the DVD in, I felt a bit of deja vu, myself, but continued on with watching, as there are some slight variations in this film as compared to the Japanese or American versions.

Ring Virus is offered in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and while not a perfect looking print, it's not bad. There does seem to be some grain issues throughout the disc, but overall, it's not a bad looking print. Audio tracks include; Korean (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Mandarin (Dolby Digital 2.0) and Cantonese (Dolby Digital 2.0). Subtitles are offered in English and Chinese. The audio sounds quite good, but as is often the case, listening to the English dub and reading the English subs often offers a big difference in what is said and what is read. Bonus features are kind of light, but include:

-Trailers: The Ring Virus, Cop On A Mission, Soul Guardians, Run 2U, Addicted, Red Trousers

I've now seen, Ringu, The Ring and The Ring Virus and I can honestly say, each offers interesting variations of the novel the films are based on. From what I've read, The Ring Virus is a closer adaptation to the novel, but since I've never read the novel, I can't say how true that may be. I can say that I found this to be a decent film and it relies more on atmosphere and some tension, rather that gore or scares to tell the story. Now, that's not to say this film doesn't have some genuinely creepy moments, because for me, there was a time or two I felt a bit of a chill. I may have been taken off guard a time or two more, had I not seen the Japanese and American versions of the film, but I'd still recommend this to fans of the Japanese or American versions, it moves along at a nice pace and while the character Sun-joo isn't that interesting, I did find the character, Dr Choi to be a lot more 'real' and interesting. Perhaps some fans might find one more version of the film to be overkill, but I honestly would watch this version, again.

Buy The Ring Virus on DVD at Amazon.com