When the 1998 film Ringu aka Ring hit theaters it took the world by storm becoming not only the highest grossing horror film in Japan, but spawned two sequels, a video game as well as two American versions. With not much word of the series for some time it's back with an all-new installment named for the famous focal point of the series Sadako 3D, but can it live up to the creepy nature that made the original film so great or is it just another forgettable sequel to a once great franchise.Sadako 3D follows a high school teacher who discovers Internet footage that her students have been watching of someone's suicide that is rumored to drive anyone who watches it to commit suicide as well. While she doubts it at first, she soon discovers that it is actually of a man whose intention is to create chaos in the world by bringing back Sadako and her curse. Initially this film takes some interesting directions shifting the curse from the VHS to update it to the current Internet nature. There are some creative moments using cell phones and computer screens that should have delivered but never really push the envelope the way it should have. Even with these issues the film still could have worked pretty well, but due to the decision for 3D they opted to over saturate the film with CGI effects that were not all that great. Part of the charm of the original films was just the pure creepy especially the Sadako character. She did very little in the originals other than climb out of the well and inch towards you, but the look and vibe was very effective. Sadly that is all gone with the exception of a few moments until the end when things change completely. This series has always been a cursed haunted genre film, but this entry takes it out of that all together at one point turning it into somewhat of a monster film losing the entire point of this series. While it loses the Ring aspect, it still could have been pretty cool had they not used some pretty poor CGI to bring these creatures to life.This movie had lots if issues, but all stuff that could have still worked well had they not gone complete CG for everything. Fans of the original film will most likely have some real issues with this film as it plays more like a reboot than a sequel and fails to live up to the classic that came before it. Word is that there is a sequel to this film coming as well and hopefully they will take some of the good ideas here and deliver something a lot better.

DEAR readers, I have nothing positive to say about Sadako 3D. It's an insipid horror flick that's as bad as Seram Sejuk, which I reviewed last month.Sadako is the fifth in the series of horror flicks originating from The Ring (1998), in which those who watch a cursed videotape will die, no matter if they saw it on VHS or Beta. Okay, the last part is my judgment.Now, those who watch a cursed videoclip, of someone committing suicide, will themselves commit suicide. Before I continue, I just want to say that Sadako is uninspiring, tame, unoriginal and downright silly.I don't find it scary to see a thin white hand with long fingernails reaching out of a computer towards me. It even gets boring after awhile. All the victims will then shout and scream at the top of their lungs, but to no avail, as they will all commit suicide.The movie starts off slowly, and viewers may be mistaken into thinking that they are watching a documentary. A videoclip of someone committing suicide is making the rounds and everyone wants to watch it; it's as if it's a sex clip of Kim Kardashian.However, those who watch it commit suicide. This goes on for awhile before teacher Akane (Satomi Ishihara) decides to intervene after her student falls from her condo unit. There are also a couple of detectives lurking in the background.Her boyfriend Takanori (Koji Seto) also gets dragged into this mess, that is, dragged into the computer.Sweet Akane, the one with the shrieky voice that can break glass, which happens in this flick, goes underground to save her lover, but not before she runs around in an empty warehouse avoiding an army of gargantuan and ugly-looking hairy spiders. They may look dangerous but all our heroine has to do to destroy them is to give them a hard whack and they'll disintegrate into smithereens. Finally, what's this flick without long and dishevelled hair smothering our hero?After this movie is over, viewers will want to seriously consider committing suicide.

13 years after the events of the original film a rumor about a cursed web-stream is going around in urban Japan. A white clad man announces an obscure plan and a woman's voice announces "It is not you". After this you die. From this point on we follow both the investigation on a larger case of serial suicides by a detective named Koise (Tayama Ryôsei), as well as Akane, a young teacher (Ishihara Satomi) trying to cope with her students death. But everything comes back together within the plan of artist Kashiwada Seiji (Yamamoto Yûsuke) trying to call upon the mysterious S.When I went to see Sadako 3D I actually wasn't expecting much. The Ring movie franchise had a pretty good start but quickly lost control of what it was trying to do. Two disagreeing sequels, Rasen (1998) and Ring 2 (1999), a prequel, Ring 0 (2000), that does not really connect to either sequel. Still all the films managed to built a rather solid atmosphere of dread that managed to work so well, it inspired an Gore Verbinski to create his own American take on the lore, creating The Ring in 2002. But this chain of movies has some loops along the way and it all started with a novel by a Japanese author called Suzuki Koji and its sequel Rasen, which also build the basis for this movie. Because actually this movie is a sequel to the first two books and none of the movies, being apparently based on Suzukis novel S (released only one day before the movies release) and almost ignoring the sequel he had already written in 1998. This movie was not off for a good start. Now Sadako 3D seems to strive less for atmosphere and is instead all the more about the little shock moments that are supposed to make you jump. All together it plays out more like the bastard child of a hundred J-Horror catch-copies that littered the shelfs in the 90s and early 2000s. Screaming schoolgirls, a pretty lead and jump scare after jump scare. Only the finale gives a slight twist on the usual formula and transports us into an almost anime'esque setting, complete with superpowers, monsters and defeating the big bad through the power of love. As a horror movie there is not much to recommend. The scares are all been-there-done-that and, if you've seen 2 or 3 Japanese mainstream horror films in your lifetime, you can probably reek them from a mile away. Not helping is the awkward use of 3D, which frames the jump scares like pop-up pages in a comic book, warning you about them almost a minute before they actually happen.But still I can't completely hate this movie because of its aforementioned connection to the original novels. It does put a rather clever twist on the question what had actually happened after Sadakos rebirth. There are some interesting nods to the old Sadako stories here and there, and if you pay enough attention you actually notice that the Sadako from 13 years ago is in this movie. The sad thing though, it has almost nothing to do with the main plot and serves only as a gimmick. All in all though the movie delivers solid J-Horror, which would probably have been greatly appreciated 10 years ago. It doesn't add anything new though and even the aspect of technology, which always played a big part in the Ring series, is largely underused. If you care for a slightly gimmicky entry in the Ring series, with some interesting nods to previous installments, you could give it a go.

Rarely do I ever bother to rate anything, and rarely do I have the urge to leave the movie midway. Highly anticipating some updates in the special effects department and a twisting storyline, I sat down with my favorite drink and proceeded to watch with high expectations of a good scare. The starting scene featured a well dressed man, probably at the peak of his madness (but still taking the time to groom himself well and dressing so fashionably) trying to kill himself. Warning bells started to ring in my head, everything screamed 'overkill!!' and i started to doubt whether the rest of the movie will be the same.Your typical Japanese film, where the guys look like girls, and the girls look like sailor moon characters. The acting was terrible, the cast should have concentrated on their acting skills instead of spending so much time on their hair and clothes. No thanks to the script writers, the storyline was just stupid, laws of physics didn't make sense (how does a huge hand pop out from an i-Phone ?), time-line didn't match and some parts were just down right funny (Sadako really went to town with the whole gadget/HighDef technology part). Throughout, Sadako was a supernatural being able to magically appear across the entire country popping up anywhere and everywhere there was a screen, but was unable to sense the heroine hiding behind the cupboard in the same damn room!The original film The Ring used tension, great acting and simplicity in the storyline to give a great scare. This new film had so much potential, but unfortunately the person putting it together probably just graduated from film school (or probably failed it). The special effects deserved special mention, it was just ridiculous to see the main actress suddenly becoming Xena and smashing the xerox of Sadakos popping up all over the place. It was quite funny to see the scores of Sadako skittering around like an over excited schoolboy. Obviously the director watched matrix and decided to add some of the special effects to this school project.Shame on you Mr Director for turning a great horror film into a comedy.Acting 2/10 Storyline 4/10 Cinematography 3/10 Special Effects -3442/10 Overall -4,393,342/10