Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Ring 0 - Birthday (2000)

Director: Norio Tsuruta

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Hideo Nakata wisely declined to make this prequel, no doubt because the producers were intent on slavish fidelity to ideas from Koji Suzuki's original novel - rather than developing the sci-fi/body-horror implications of Ring 2. This plod through the virginal Sadako's adolescence as a member of a theatre group in the 1950s is an anthology of theatre-mystery clichés: the imploding flashbulbs, corpse discovered in mid-performance, stage machinery that animates itself, dark rumours, nagging nightmares. All of the more intriguing questions about Sadako's true parentage are sidestepped in favour of the 'relevation' that this innocent girl has an evil twin who causes all the trouble. Dull and extremely disappointing, this was none the less a hit in Japan. Straight to DVD everywhere else, of course.

Author: TR 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Norio Tsuruta

Producer: Masato Hara, Shinji Ogawa, Masao Nagai, Takashige Ichise

Cast: Yukie Nakama, Seiichi Tanabe, Kumiko Aso, Yoshiko Tanaka, Takashi Wakamatsu full cast

Duration: 98 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.