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Ring 0: Birthday

Play trailer Poster for Ring 0: Birthday 2000 1h 39m Horror Mystery & Thriller Play Trailer Watchlist
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Tomatometer 4 Reviews 62% Popcornmeter 25,000+ Ratings
A journalist tracks a young woman who uses her supernatural powers to kill members of an acting troupe.

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Ring 0: Birthday

Critics Reviews

View All (4) Critics Reviews
Grant Watson Fiction Machine An unnecessary exercise that fails to even exploit its source material. Rated: 5/10 Sep 3, 2024 Full Review Panos Kotzathanasis Asian Movie Pulse A movie that is as underwhelming as possible, and definitely a number of levels lower than its predecessors. Rated: 5/10 Feb 27, 2022 Full Review Christopher Null Filmcritic.com for about 20 minutes, we've got a cool little thriller on our hands Rated: 2.5/5 Aug 28, 2005 Full Review Luke Y. Thompson LYTRules.com It's both moving and scary, with characters the viewer can genuinely care about. Feb 16, 2005 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Josh A Wow. What an amazing film and an amazing yet tragic finale to the Ring quadrilogy (this is the last movie in the Japanese series with the name "Ring", the others are called "Sadako", besides the original 4 theatrical Japanese movies just serve as a good quadrilogy). It sort of changes how you look at some scenes in the 1998 movie, especially the actual videotape. Was the idea of there being 2 Sadakos a bit wild? Yep. But then again, it didn't impact the experience much and they merged in the end. Besides, maybe it was part of the original story (this film is based on Lemon Heart, a short story from the 4th novel in the Ring series, Birthday, which is an anthology rather than a full novel). Was it a tragic but beautiful dive into what Sadako was like when she was alive? Hell yea. It was just really well crafted and well made. It reminds me of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a play I went to see in London a while back, which was amazing and I 100% recommend. Overall, amazing film, definitely recommend. Next up, Sadako 3D. The next 4 movies don't have the best reputations, but in the end, they're just movies. If I don't like them, I'll just ignore them. But this basically ends the original run of the Ring movies. What a great series. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 10/30/24 Full Review S. C A lot of it could have used some more work but some scenes are very well shot, edited and directed. The begining was a weird decision and felt out of place. The whole chase scene in the woods felt a bit like a fever dream and overwhelming. I found a few of the performances really nice but rest of it wasn't really captivating. I enjoyed that the story had dimensions to it with the theatre play. In the sequel it is stated that Sadako survived 30 years in the well and in this prequel it is made clear that she did so apparently due to her regenerative abilities, which I found cool to add. Most lacking thing is the writing. Looking at a summarized plot would be alright but when getting into detail it gets ugly. There are turns that are not well elaborated and scenes which are downright confusing. Some actors are given noticably worse scripts than others, and some are far less compelling actors than others, too. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 12/07/23 Full Review Justin T It is quite nicely shot, it sounded good and so on. Nothing stands out though. Where is the video tape? I understand that they were doing something different by explaining the girl in the well but this barely feels like a Ring movie. It is a pretty standard ghost story that adds little back-story to the series. It reminded me more of Carrie (1976) than anything else. There was a lack of intensity at the end and a lack of scares throughout making it worse than the predecessors. A disappointing entry into the series that solely focuses on back-story. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 06/11/23 Full Review Audience Member A prequel that goes a radically different way. Not at all what you would expect from this mythology, but it's kind of interesting. Not at all how I would've thought Sadako to be in life. It's not much of a conventional horror movie either. It's kind of dull, trying to play up an eerie slow burn, but ultimately failing to hold my interest after a while. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 05/17/19 Full Review Audience Member Best horror movie I have ever seen. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member I loved the double Sadako... the sweet one and the creepy one. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Ring 0: Birthday

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis A journalist tracks a young woman who uses her supernatural powers to kill members of an acting troupe.
Director
Norio Tsuruta
Producer
Shinji Ogawa, Masao Nagai, Takashige Ichise
Screenwriter
Hiroshi Takahashi
Production Co
20th Century Fox
Genre
Horror, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language
Japanese
Release Date (Streaming)
Oct 23, 2019
Runtime
1h 39m
Sound Mix
Surround, DTS
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.85:1)
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