1998 – Rie Inoue – Ring

In the late 90s, I had the opportunity to cover Montreal’s FanTasia Festival as a journalist for a couple of years for the late (!!!) lamented (?) AstroneF Magazine, thus viewing around 75 titles in a month-long event. At first, the organizers’ intentions were to share the discovery of many eccentric Asian movies with North American viewers, in a time when the names of Jet Li, Chow Yun-fat, John Woo or Michelle Yeoh were not widely recognized and the availability of these productions on home video was still confidential. With time, FanTasia’s programming began to evolve into more international entries, prizes were quickly awarded, guests that we couldn’t meet were invited, so it began to loose its shine for me, especially in recent years. I won’t use the word “pretentious”, far from it, preferring the term “self-satisfied” to describe the whole yearly affair. Truth be told, I mainly lost my patience in waiting in endless line-ups sandwiched between cult movie enthusiasts, people whose behavior, speech patterns and clothing choices got on my nerves. That’s what you can call GRUMPINESS, I guess, and I won’t even hold a grudge if you do.

Regardless, I had tons of fun in FanTasia’s first five years, let’s say, enlarging my cultural horizons and discovering new and fascinating movie people. I fell in love with Maggie Cheung, among many other craziness, and once proclaimed on a television show where I was a colorful movie critic that she was the most beautiful person in the world. Yes, I did that. But I digress. I also saw a beautiful copy of my personal favorite Godzilla adventure, Destroy All Monsters, and some Santo movies, these later being midnight showings that were greatly enjoyed and turned into carnival-like events, complete with amateur costumes and enthusiastic mock battles. During a friendly Ultraman key episodes retrospective, a guy accompanied by his young son was laughing so hard at the unlikely appearance of some ridiculous giant monster that he actually fell off his theater chair, pissed his pants and lay sprawled on the ground, between aisles, unable to get up, shaking with laughter. His kid was starring blindly at the screen, presumably bored (and/or ashamed?) out of his mind. Myself and many others witnessed this with great delight. Actually, a stuntman dressed up as Ultraman was also running around the Imperial Cinema that memorable Saturday matinee.

But FanTasia’s 1999 edition promised a Japanese movie that would knock our socks off, that was the last word in Movie Fear. Now, how many times have I heard that? How many movies had literally scared me, anyway? Really scared? I’m not talking about being merely disgusted by gross effects and surprised by jump-scare tactics. Well, I admit that my first viewing of The Exorcist (on its first broadcast television premiere back in 1980, I think) left me devastated. The circumstances of seeing the original Night of the Living Dead for the first time in an almost empty theater on a dark autumn night in a strange neighborhood was quite unique also. But on that hot 1999 summer night, me and hundreds of others, now all veterans of FanTasia and no strangers to odd viewing habits, got an eyeful, if I may employ the term.

Of course the film was Hideo Nakata’s Ring and I was never prepared for that kind of experience. Close to 10 years after its premiere, Ring and its mythology of many sequels, remakes and copies is now well documented and kind of diluted. Hell, the concept of a vengeful ghost girl with long dark hair is an old convention in Asian legends and many movies before Ring had proposed that particular visual. But I can still remember the collective gasp of the audience when we all saw what is in my opinion one of the most frightful sight in movie history: a close-up of Sadako’s eye, more or less obscured by hair, looking downward in a most intense way. We all lost it.

Ring tells the tale of a haunted video that eventually kills whoever views it. There’s a link with a murdered misunderstood young girl with psychic powers but I’ll let you discover it for yourself, if you hadn’t yet the pleasure. That ghostly girl is played by Rie Inou, who retook the role in the sequel Ring 2. Rie was born in 1967 and was chosen for the part because of her Kabuki theater background, especially her involvement in Ban’yuu Inryoku, a stage technique where you exaggerate your movements and take odd postures to convey different emotional meanings. These gestures were utilized in the most creepy way possible, and that’s why it’s so effective here than in any precedent Japanese vengeful ghost story filmed in previous years. Movie history was immediately made for this unique character, a most tragic and still monstrous figure that couldn’t be more adequately played. I don’t even remember being scared in a movie theater since, so it’s impossible not to salute that tremendous performance. But I barely drag myself to go out and see new films anymore!

This concludes Cult Sirens’ 13 Favorite female performances in horror movies. I proposed this feature in the first days of this blog and I can proudly say that it contributed to the success of this corner of the world wide web. These 13 performers and their roles are to be forever part of movie legend and it was an honor to write a little something about them in this format.