Not good in the slightest
The Ring remains one of my favorite Japanese horrors and I tried to avoid watching all the films and TV shows that followed in an attempt to cash-in on the success of the lucrative film, but I got the chance to see Sadako 2 3D and decided to see what they’d done to Kôji Suzuki’s creation, and after seeing this lazily written affair, I’m sure the author of the original won’t be very pleased.
Including two TV shows, this is the seventh or eighth incarnation of the franchise, but, rather than trying to create something new, they’ve rehashed the same old premise, a scary kid with long hair, and instead of a VHS tape, it’s anything digital, like a PC monitor or cellphone, that spreads the killer vision to its victims and makes them commit suicide by jumping out of buildings onto car-roofs and the like. Hair is also very prominent, where it appears by the sackful, and tries to kill people in variously stupid ways. There’s a dream scene where a long-haired ghoulish woman gets her hair stuck in a paper-shredder and uses the dangling object as a sort of mace, bashing it off the wall and trying to attack our heroine.
- Sadako 2 3D
- Directed by
Tsutomu Hanabusa - Cast
Satomi Ishihara, Yûsuke Yamamoto, Miori Takimoto - Release Date
28 February 2014 - Nav’s Grade: D
Fûko Andô is a young woman who is looking after a little girl, Nagi, who she believes to be her niece. Her brother brought Nagi home to Fuko after telling her his wife Akane died. Things begin to go wrong near Nagi, with people starting to have visions, and death also starts to follow the girl around. When people look at their computers or phones and see something strange, soon after they kill themselves. A cop begins to investigate as does Fuko, especially after a spiral mark appears on her arm, and they try to find out who Nagi really is and put a stop to the deaths.
*****
The “3D” in the title of Sadako 2 3D sort of sums it up really. They have a new toy to play with so why bother with a new story? I have no idea what Sadako 1 was like but from what I can gather it was pretty much the same as this, so what was the point in this mess? The cinematography is pretty good as are the production values, but the CGI is woeful and substandard, with nothing much creative going on, unless you consider messy hair-like tendrils occasionally jumping out at you being creative.
I wanted to turn this off several times but for the sake of being able to give an honest review I soldiered on. I almost broke at the 70-minute mark when the big reveal occurred but I eventually ended up laughing at what I was looking at. It gives new meaning to long hair, but I don’t want to spoil it so I’ll say no more other than to tell you I was extremely disappointed with Sadako 2 3D. This is one to avoid, especially if you have dandruff!
Review by Nav Qateel
