Movies - Rasen

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	Movies - Rasen

Not to be confused with the Japanese novel "Uzumaki
" which translates as "whirlpool" or "vortex" or the 1999 Japanese movie Ring 2
or the 2005 American movie The Ring Two

Rasen (aka Spiral in English) is a 1995 Japanese novel and 1998 Japanese movie based on the novel. The film version is often called the "forgotten sequel".

Plot

The story follows on from the first Ring novel/movie with the reasons for Sadako creating the cursed videotape becoming more clear. The idea is that if the tape is watched by a woman who is ovulating, she can impregnate herself in such a woman and therefore live again. The woman turns out to be Mai Takano. In the film Ring, she is Ryuji Takayama's student and nothing more as far as we are told. However in the novel it is stated that they were lovers and she lived with him at least part of the time up until his death. It also contains a plot about a former classmate of Ryuji Takayama from medical school performing his autopsy. In so doing, he discovers Ryuji kept a record of the events that lead to his death. The doctor is unsure of what to do because the record clearly states a danger to the public but it also includes supernatural events, so going public could ruin his reputation.

The "Forgotten Sequel"

In an unusual move the films Ring and Rasen were filmed and released concurrently with separate screenwriters, crews and production companies and a shared cast. The idea being that it would generate more interest and more profit. This move backfired drastically. While Ring went on to become one of the most successful films in Japanese history, Rasen proved to be a failure. As a result another sequel, Ring 2 was released in 1999 and was quite successful. Hence Rasen became forgotten both in terms of canon and marketing. Reasons for the failure are generally regarded as being confusion of movie-goers due to the concurrent release of the two films and negative word of mouth. It should be noted that the novel was a great success when it was released in 1995.

Mini Series

In 1999, a television mini-series was produced in Japan based on the novel. It consisted of thirteen hour-long episodes. See below link for more info.

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