13 years after the events of the original film a rumor about a cursed web-stream is going around in urban Japan. A white clad man announces an obscure plan and a woman's voice announces "It is not you". After this you die. From this point on we follow both the investigation on a larger case of serial suicides by a detective named Koise (Tayama Ryôsei), as well as Akane, a young teacher (Ishihara Satomi) trying to cope with her students death. But everything comes back together within the plan of artist Kashiwada Seiji (Yamamoto Yûsuke) trying to call upon the mysterious S.
When I went to see Sadako 3D I actually wasn't expecting much. The Ring movie franchise had a pretty good start but quickly lost control of what it was trying to do. Two disagreeing sequels, Rasen (1998) and Ring 2 (1999), a prequel, Ring 0 (2000), that does not really connect to either sequel. Still all the films managed to built a rather solid atmosphere of dread that managed to work so well, it inspired an Gore Verbinski to create his own American take on the lore, creating The Ring in 2002.
But this chain of movies has some loops along the way and it all started with a novel by a Japanese author called Suzuki Koji and its sequel Rasen, which also build the basis for this movie. Because actually this movie is a sequel to the first two books and none of the movies, being apparently based on Suzukis novel S (released only one day before the movies release) and almost ignoring the sequel he had already written in 1998. This movie was not off for a good start.
Now Sadako 3D seems to strive less for atmosphere and is instead all the more about the little shock moments that are supposed to make you jump. All together it plays out more like the bastard child of a hundred J-Horror catch-copies that littered the shelfs in the 90s and early 2000s. Screaming schoolgirls, a pretty lead and jump scare after jump scare. Only the finale gives a slight twist on the usual formula and transports us into an almost anime'esque setting, complete with superpowers, monsters and defeating the big bad through the power of love.
As a horror movie there is not much to recommend. The scares are all been-there-done-that and, if you've seen 2 or 3 Japanese mainstream horror films in your lifetime, you can probably reek them from a mile away. Not helping is the awkward use of 3D, which frames the jump scares like pop-up pages in a comic book, warning you about them almost a minute before they actually happen.
But still I can't completely hate this movie because of its aforementioned connection to the original novels. It does put a rather clever twist on the question what had actually happened after Sadakos rebirth. There are some interesting nods to the old Sadako stories here and there, and if you pay enough attention you actually notice that the Sadako from 13 years ago is in this movie. The sad thing though, it has almost nothing to do with the main plot and serves only as a gimmick.
All in all though the movie delivers solid J-Horror, which would probably have been greatly appreciated 10 years ago. It doesn't add anything new though and even the aspect of technology, which always played a big part in the Ring series, is largely underused. If you care for a slightly gimmicky entry in the Ring series, with some interesting nods to previous installments, you could give it a go.
When I went to see Sadako 3D I actually wasn't expecting much. The Ring movie franchise had a pretty good start but quickly lost control of what it was trying to do. Two disagreeing sequels, Rasen (1998) and Ring 2 (1999), a prequel, Ring 0 (2000), that does not really connect to either sequel. Still all the films managed to built a rather solid atmosphere of dread that managed to work so well, it inspired an Gore Verbinski to create his own American take on the lore, creating The Ring in 2002.
But this chain of movies has some loops along the way and it all started with a novel by a Japanese author called Suzuki Koji and its sequel Rasen, which also build the basis for this movie. Because actually this movie is a sequel to the first two books and none of the movies, being apparently based on Suzukis novel S (released only one day before the movies release) and almost ignoring the sequel he had already written in 1998. This movie was not off for a good start.
Now Sadako 3D seems to strive less for atmosphere and is instead all the more about the little shock moments that are supposed to make you jump. All together it plays out more like the bastard child of a hundred J-Horror catch-copies that littered the shelfs in the 90s and early 2000s. Screaming schoolgirls, a pretty lead and jump scare after jump scare. Only the finale gives a slight twist on the usual formula and transports us into an almost anime'esque setting, complete with superpowers, monsters and defeating the big bad through the power of love.
As a horror movie there is not much to recommend. The scares are all been-there-done-that and, if you've seen 2 or 3 Japanese mainstream horror films in your lifetime, you can probably reek them from a mile away. Not helping is the awkward use of 3D, which frames the jump scares like pop-up pages in a comic book, warning you about them almost a minute before they actually happen.
But still I can't completely hate this movie because of its aforementioned connection to the original novels. It does put a rather clever twist on the question what had actually happened after Sadakos rebirth. There are some interesting nods to the old Sadako stories here and there, and if you pay enough attention you actually notice that the Sadako from 13 years ago is in this movie. The sad thing though, it has almost nothing to do with the main plot and serves only as a gimmick.
All in all though the movie delivers solid J-Horror, which would probably have been greatly appreciated 10 years ago. It doesn't add anything new though and even the aspect of technology, which always played a big part in the Ring series, is largely underused. If you care for a slightly gimmicky entry in the Ring series, with some interesting nods to previous installments, you could give it a go.