The Ring Virus (Hangul: 링) is a South Korean horror film adapted from the Japanese novel Ring by Koji Suzuki. A joint project between Japan and Korea, this version has Park Eun-Suh as the creator of the cursed videotape. Although the filmmakers claimed that the film was adapted from the novel, there are various scenes in the film that match the 1998 film Ring, such as the sex of the lead character, some of the scenes on the videotape as well as copying other film scenes directly from the original film, including the film's climax.
Contents[]
- 1Cast
- 2Plot
- 3Differences between film and book
Cast[]
- Bae Doona as Park Eun-suh (Sadako Yamamura)
- Shin Eun-kyung as Hong Sun-joo
- Lee Seung-hyeon
- Jung Jin-young as Choi Yeol
- Kim Chang-wan as Reporter Kim
- Kim Ggoch-ji
- Yu Yeon-su
Plot[]
Followed by the death of her friends, journalist Hong Sun-Joo comes across a videotape containing incomprehensible images. Towards the end of the tape, she finds the curse which states that the viewer would die at the same time next week if he/she does not perform certain tasks. However, the next scene explaining the nature of the task has been erased. Sun-Joo and a doctor named Choi-Yul embark on a journey to break the curse placed upon them. They discover that the videotape was made by the psychic called Park Eun-Suh. Eun-Suh was an illegitimate daughter of a female psychic and was born a hermaphrodite. She was romantically involved with her half-brother and worked in a night club for a while. There, a man who found out about her secrets was killed as she had the uncanny ability to protect herself. The video tape is the medium Eun-Suh uses to reveal herself to the society. Her first exposure to the media was a painful experience, which caused her to withdraw from the outside world. When it became difficult for her to relate to the society, she retaliated by infiltrating it like a virus. The way of infiltration is one-way only and any attempt to block the process ends in extremely negative consequences.
Differences between film and book[]
As opposed to the Japanese adaptation Ring, this movie more closely follows Koji Suzuki's storyline, while keeping some elements first introduced with Ring.
- The main character from the novel is a man called Kazuyuki Asakawa, while in the film, the main character is a woman called Sun-Joo Hong.
- The villain from the novel is named Sadako Yamamura, while in the movie, she is called Park Eun-Suh.
- Ryuji in the novel is a philosophy professor who also achieved medical studies, whereas in the movie, Choi is a doctor who made a mystical pronouncement at the scene of one the deaths about supernatural forces having been at work.