After the success of the original film, the decision was made to explore the life of the beloved protagonist Sadako from the original Ringu with some of the same individuals behind the camera. With an adaptation of several stories in Koji Suzuki's short-story collection Birthday that contained several stories to fill in the details of Sadako's history and newcomer Norio Tsuruta filling in for director Hideo Nakata, this is a fine entry that helps to cement gaps in the story from the previous films.
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Prequel to the horror film “Ringu”, this movie provides the background story of how Sadako (Yukie Nakama) later became a vengeful murdering spirit. The story starts with her as a shy, somewhat withdrawn college student who nonetheless gets involved in a drama club. The director thinks she has talent, but some of the other performers start to get jealous of the attention he gives her. Meanwhile, a reporter investigating Sadako's spiritualist mother thinks there's something very suspicious about the young woman, and arrives on campus to confront Sadako just as a series of strange deaths start sweeping through the drama club.
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There was quite a lot to like with this adaptation. Among the more impressive elements is the clear and pronounced build-up that occurs regarding the revelation involving supernatural origins. These are quite subtle but still quite prominent throughout the running time, as the series of incidents surrounding the theater trope raise the suspicions that something's going on. This ranges from the performers' constant claims of something going on around her to their panic over the strange dreams each one shares and the mounting death toll that runs through the group. This is done in tandem with the known disdain for her based on the preferential treatment Sadako receives and how quickly she moves up their ranks despite her overt shyness and lacking acting talent. The scenes where she unleashes the power within her on her classmates with admittedly supernatural occurrencessuggest something was happening around them which helps to give this some life.
This build-up manages to provide several impressive and chilling moments once it's all been brought out into the open. The outbursts at seeing ghosts hanging around the set while doing rehearsals are rather fun and creepy, while the later scenes of her reflecting back on her time with her mother form the basis for the cursed videotape that's commonly found in the franchise. With the disastrous troupe performance that lets them in on what's going on as the action that takes place is brutal and frantic as well as touching in terms of getting to the doctor's house that starts to bring out more of the images in the mythical tape. With these scenes also giving the chilling encounters in the woods with Sadako and her demented disjointed walk chasing after the girls left alive, there's plenty to like here as this sets the franchise in motion.
There are some big flaws within “Ringu 0.” The main issue here is a rather bland and unnecessary subplot involving a reporter looking around for the mother's bizarre behavior that doesn't amount to much here, consisting of what are seemingly endless meetings with medical professionals that were once associated with the case. Seeing as the point is to lead her directly to the acting trope and into contact with her for her story, these feel much more laid-back and lethargic than the rest of the film and didn't need to be included as often as they are. The other issue within this one is the fact that the relationship between the two is completely unconvincing, never coming across as anything other than storyline contrivance and not because of anything that happens between them while in class together.
With some genuinely shocking moments here interspersed with banal ideas and a few troublesome encounters, “Ringu 0: Birthday” is a solid and wholly watchable effort that has plenty going for it. Give it a shot if you're a fan of the previous entries in the series or of these J-Horror efforts.
