Imagine a teenage boy in class asked to read aloud from an exciting tense piece of literature. Imagine that boy to have the most monotone voice, a voice with no inflection and that his reading is resoundingly flat and uninspired. In the case of Rasen that boy would be Joji Iida who wrote the screenplay and directed this adaptation of a riveting novel by Koji Suzuki.
The original sequel to Ringu (1998), Rasen was actually released in Japan at the same time, the intention being to capitalise on the success of the Ring novel and television series. Where Ringu went on to become one of the most successful films in Japanese history, Rasen struggled to find an audience and was subsequently overlooked in the franchise and succeeded by Ringu 2 (1999) which went on to make money. It was reasoned that the movie failed due to audience confusion with the release of both the movie and its follow-up at the same time.
Perhaps, but maybe it also had something to do with the fact that the movie was dull and failed to generate good reviews or word of mouth. Young pathologist Dr. Mitsu Ando is an old friend of Ryuji Takayama from medical school. Ando is called in to examine Ryuji’s body after he is found dead in his own apartment. In doing so he comes across a note in the stomach which turns out to be a code. In following up the note’s meaning he begins to learn of THAT videotape from the first film. He is soon caught up in a bizarre mystery that shows that there is more to Sadako’s curse than dying from a cursed videotape.
Ditching much of the code interpreting that made the novel a more gripping read, Iida’s adaptation is resoundingly flat. It never grips when it should and moves at a pace a little above being static. With a better man behind the camera, Rasen could easily have been the equal of Ringu if not even better. If you are a fan of the movies it is worth checking out just to see the direction the series could have gone even if it doesn’t do justice to the source material. Look out for the book’s author Koji Suzuki as a father with his family in the fairground train.