The original Japanese title of the 1998 horror film remade as The Ring is Ringu.
Ringu was directed by Hideo Nakata and adapted from Koji Suzuki’s 1991 novel Ring. Its story follows a journalist investigating a cursed videotape supposedly linked to deaths occurring seven days after it is watched.
The film became a major success in Japan and helped bring international attention to J-horror. Its minimalist imagery, investigative structure, and unsettling supernatural logic influenced horror cinema outside Japan. Gore Verbinski directed the 2002 American remake, The Ring, starring Naomi Watts.
Ringu is sometimes confused with other influential Japanese horror films. Ju-On: The Grudge concerns a violent curse attached to a house, while Dark Water is another Nakata-directed supernatural film. Pulse, released in 2001, was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and is a separate story.