Rasen
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| Rasen | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Joji Iida |
| Produced by | Masato Hara Takashige Ichise Takenori Sendo |
| Written by | Kôji Suzuki Jôji Iida |
| Starring | Miki Nakatani Hiroyuki Sanada Koichi Sato |
| Cinematography | Makoto Watanabe |
| Editing by | Hirohide Abe |
| Release date(s) | 1998 |
| Running time | 97 min. |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Rasen (Spiral) is a sequel to the movie Ring. It is directed by Joji Iida, and, as with the first movie, is based on a novel by Koji Suzuki.
In an unusual cinematic move, Ring and its sequel Rasen were released in Japan at the same time. The studio hoped this would increase revenues, because the Ring story was already a successful novel and television series. The two films shared a few cast members and had the same production team, but different directors and screenwriters; Rasen was written and directed by Jōji Iida whereas Ring was written by Hiroshi Takahashi and directed by Hideo Nakata. After their release, Ring became an enormous success while Rasen floundered, quickly becoming the "forgotten sequel."
Takahashi and Nakata were later recruited to produce another sequel, Ring 2, which replaced Rasen as the sequel to Ring, having taken a different and original storyline from Suzuki's book.
[edit] Plot
Ryuji Takayama's body being examined by his friend and arch-rival, pathologist Mitsuo Andou. After he finds a cryptic note in Takayama's stomach, Takayama's wife, Reiko Asakawa, and son, Yoichi Asakawa, also turn up dead. Andou soon learns of a mysterious videotape, haunted by the spirit of a murdered woman. The rumors are that anyone who watches the video will die exactly one week later. Despondent over the death of his own child, and believing that he is being guided by his rival's ghost, Andou decides to see the video for himself. After watching the tape, strange things begin happening around him, and he soon discovers that the tape's restless spirit has different plans in store for him.
With the help of Takayama's student, Mai Takano, Andou finds out more about Takayama’s past as well as the mysterious woman, Sadako Yamamura. The searching for the truth of why Takayama’s son also died from the same virus and his wife didn’t, leads him to Takayama’s wife’s boss, Yoshino. He lets Andou in on a secret… He has the wife’s diary, she and Ryuji had been researching the cursed videotape that had cursed them both and their son. While Reiko had managed to break the curse, Takayama died a week after watching the tape. His wife believed that creating a copy would save you from curse, but a week after also watching the tape, their son died the same way as his father had. Yoshino shows Andou both the tape and the diary.
When Andou tells Mai Takano what he’s done, she is shocked and can’t understand why as she felt that it was the video that killed Takayama and his family from the start. As they are talking, Yoshino calls Andou. He admits that he wishes that he’d never been involved in Reiko’s business, while Andou believes that Yoshino had watched the video, he denies it saying that he was too scared to. However, Yoshino still dies.
Andou decides to destroy the videotapes and make sure that he will be the video's last victim. He then confides in Mai about his son’s death, and they end up sleeping together. Andou asks Mai if she’ll be there with him when he dies, but Mai tells him she’s too scared. He understands and decides to try to find out more about the virus that killed Takayama and his son. It turns out that the virus that killed Yoshino wasn’t the same one that killed the father and son. Andou asks for tests to be run on him.
Meanwhile, Mai Takano goes missing, while Andou has apparently survives the curse. He starts to feel that story was just a myth and he's relieved when Mai turns up… However, he is shocked to find out that Mai has been found dead, having given birth with no sign of a baby. Andou goes back to work and sees “Mai” there. She claims to be Mai's sister, but after a date and a night of intimacy, Andou finds out that she is none other than Sadako Yamamura reborn and claiming to be "perfectly dual-gendered". He then finds out that Takayama wasn’t helping Andou stop Sadako: He and his family were helping her. The virus that killed Yoshino, that was killing Miyashita (Andou’s friend) and many others wasn’t the video… It was Ryuji Takayama’s wife’s diary.
In the end, Andou clones both Takayama and his son back to life with help from Sadako. Just as Ryuji leaves, he tells Andou:
“Many years will pass before our world will be at peace.”
[edit] The "Forgotten Sequel"
In an unusual move, the films Ring and Rasen were filmed and released concurrently with separate screenwriters, crews and production companies and a shared cast. The idea being that it would generate more interest and more profit. This move backfired drastically. While Ring went on to become one of the most successful films in Japanese history, Rasen proved to be a failure. As a result another sequel, Ring 2, was released in 1999 and was quite successful. Hence, Rasen became forgotten both in terms of canon and marketing.
In 1999, a television series was produced in Japan based on the novel. It consisted of 13 hour-long episodes.
[edit] External links
- the ringworld Fansite covering all aspects of the Ring series
- the Ring AREA - Contains of the cursed videos of the Ring cycle and their scene-by-scene analyses, as well as lots of other useful information.
- Rasen at the Internet Movie Database
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