Ring 0: Birthday

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Ring 0: Birthday
Directed by	Norio Tsuruta
Produced by	Shinji Ogawa, Masao Nagai Takashige Ichise
Written by	Hiroshi Takahashi Kôji Suzuki
Starring	Yukie Nakama
Music by	Shinichiro Ogata
Release date(s)	January 22, 2000 (Japan)
Running time	95 min.
Language	Japanese
Budget	Unknown
Followed by	Ring
IMDb profile

Ring 0: Birthday (リング0 バースデイ Ringu 0: Bāsudei) is a prequel to the film Ring. Directed by Norio Tsuruta, based on a screenplay by Hiroshi Takahashi. The film's screenplay is based on the short story Lemonheart from the Birthday anthology by Koji Suzuki. There is also a manga adaptation.

[edit] Plot summary

The film takes place 30 years prior to Ring and depicts the life of 19-year-old Sadako Yamamura, the antagonist of previous films. However Sadako Yamamura's role now shifts to that of a protagonist.

The story begins with a reporter named Miyaji Akiko (Tanako Yoshika), whose fiancé was a reporter killed during Shizuko's ESP demonstration, as she attempts to gather more information on Sadako's past from a grade school Sadako stayed at. Meanwhile, Sadako herself joins an acting troupe and falls in love with one of the members of that troupe, Hiroshi Toyama, only to be tormented by her own psychic abilities and the hatred of the other troupe members. As the film progresses, Miyaji soon discovers the disturbing truth that the entire troupe has become 'cursed' due to Sadako's presence, and that there is a "second" Sadako, with the appearance of a young child (akin to the appearance of "Samara" in the American Ring movies), who is responsible for the deaths of the reporters at the ESP demonstration, and also the future deaths of the troupe. At the opening day of the troupe's play one of Toyama's co-workers is able to help Miyaji in playing the recording of the ESP demonstration. Upon hearing this while on stage Sadako loses control of her psychic abilities, destroying the stage and killing the doctor that had been counseling her. The rest of the troupe (sans Toyama) then gangs up on Sadako and brutally beats her, leaving her seemingly dead. Miyaji then tells them of the "second Sadako", and that they must rid themselves of the Sadako they have known in order to avoid the second child. Arriving at Sadako's old home, Toyama is shocked when Sadako revives and demands that he leave her before it is too late. Toyama, however, refuses, and tries to escape with her. After running to a sea-cliff, Sadako is suddenly overcome by her "second" self and kills Toyama and eventually the rest of the acting troupe. She then comes to her senses and mourns her actions. Sadako's adoptive father, Dr. Ikuma, decides that he knows what must be done. He drugs Sadako by injecting her with poison. She escapes and crawls to the family well. Ikuma catches up. Sadako backs up into the well and sees Ikuma holding a Japanese wood-splitting variety of axe. She pleads for him not to, but Ikuma brings down the blade on her head, making a bloody gash. While stunned, Ikuma brings down the axe again, and throws the body down the dark well. Sadako wakes to see her love, but it is just a delusion. As she realizes she is in a well, she looks up in time to see a stone being slid into place, sealing her alive inside.