IIRC, the original Japanese version didn’t have the pat explanations for everything. The video was very different, too, although it still ended with the well. The American Ring tended to lace things with “you’re living under the curse, so weird stuff will happen now,” whereas I don’t remember that from the original. (I thought it was an effective way to give the feeling that she was cursed, but they were really playing dirty pool with the audience, since she wasn’t actually cursed most of the time.)
I thought the American version was really entertaining, but I highly recommend the Japanese version. (And yes, I know I do so at the risk of sounding like Comic Book Guy! My wife and I were in the theater planning to see The Ring, and some random guy walking past said, “Ugh- don’t even bother. See the Japanese version.” I’m glad I didn’t listen.) The American version was cool, but they left out a few things that made the original really, really cool, IMO. Once you see it, you’ll understand what I mean. For one thing, the backstory is a lot more complicated than just having Samarra be evil.
There was also a scene in the video in the American version with a lot of people writhing around in water. The sequel, Ring 2, picks up where the first movie leaves off, with the police investigation into Samarra’s death (she’s named Sadako in the Japanese version, and is a teenager at the time she is dumped in the well.) At one point a gateway is opened to the netherworld, and you see that the souls of all of Sadako’s victims are writhing around in water.
I won’t say too much more so as not to spoil the Japanese versions, since it looks like the Japanese ones will be released on DVD soon. Be warned that the backstory of the Japanese version is pretty cryptic, and only slowly unfolds over about three movies (Specifically, I’m thinking of Ring, Ring 2 (the one with the police investigation,) and Ring 0: Birthday.) Samarra/Sadako’s backstory is also very different from the American version.
The production history of the Ring movies is pretty weird, too. IIRC they are based on a series of novels, and the movies were a real phenomenon in Japan, like the X-files here. When they decided to make a movie, they unaccountably decided to make the first movie and the sequel simultaneously, and release them simultaneously.(!) This was weird enough, but apparently the two units didn’t communicate well, so the first “Ring 2” was sort of like a remake of the first one, but with a very different backstory and different take on the basic premise. (I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say for sure.) So far as I know, the Ring 2 with the police investigation is the canonical second movie, which was made later.
There’s also a Korean remake called “Ring Virus,” which was pretty bad. And I’ve heard that the very first version of Ring was actually a softporn movie in which Sadako would always crawl out of the TV set buck naked. I must say I find that very, very odd.
) to remove them. But while I was cleaning the basement this fall I learned something: centipedes freak me out. It wasn’t big, maybe 1.5" but it took all my willpower not to run away from it screaming. I know that the odds of one ever doing anything to me are tiny, compared to a spider(our area is home to a healthy wolf-spider population and they bite), are very small, since they probably don’t even bite, but they’re much worse to find because of all those legs. <shudder>