The Perilous Internet Ring

网络凶铃

China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 94 mins.

Director: Tsuruta Norio 鹤田法男.

Rating: 4/10.

Attempt to evoke Japanese horrors of 30 years ago is hampered by a lumpy script and so-so direction.

STORY

A city in southern China, the present day. Tang Jing (Ni Musi) finds that a story, 残星楼, co-written by an online group she used to belong to has suddenly gained a final chapter. She calls her friend Shao Na (Zhang Yunting) to find out if she wrote it, but the latter denies it; all the other members of the group left the forum three years ago and haven’t logged on since. The story describes how Zishan (Xie Kaixuan) and Jinghong (Ni Musi), who have been dating for three years, see a female ghost with long hair by the river one evening; Zishan freezes but Jinghong runs off to an abandoned hospital where she’s chased by the ghost. As her parents are away, Tang Jing asks her cousin Zhou Xiaonuo (Sun Yihan) if she can spend the night at her place; but as it’s very late, Zhou Xiaonuo puts her off and says she’ll see Tang Jing in the morning at a psychology lecture by Tong (Zhou Haodong), a professor at Nanjiang University. As they talk the phone line goes dead, and Tang Jing sees a ghost in her room. Next day Tang Jing fails to turn up at the lecture, during which Tong warns of the perils of internet addiction by young people. Afterwards Zhou Xiaonuo goes to Tang Jing’s flat, where she finds her dead. The police, led by detective Li (Han Pujun), suspect it was suicide but Zhou Xiaonuo doesn’t think so. Later, she asks Ma Ming (Fu Mengbo), a postgrad student who’s researching psychology, criminal investigation and demonology, and whom she met at the lecture, what he thinks, as he knew Tang Jing. He agrees with her, and says that, if Tang Jing had no enemies, her death could be due to the paranormal. Zhou Xiaonuo reads the chapter on Tang Jing’s computer, and immediately starts to feel haunted. Jiang Qiong (Zhang Jing) and Su Xiaojing (Wang Mandi), who were members of the group and are now married, receive a final chapter in their electronic mail, but the content is different: in this chapter, a couple, Ming (Zhang Jing) and Liuli (Wang Mandi) are chased by the female ghost and Ming ends up killing his wife and then suiciding. Subsequently, Jiang Qiong and Su Xiaojing are haunted and end up dead. Zhou Xiaonuo and Ma Ming work out that members of the writing group are somehow being killed off after receiving a “final chapter” featuring characters with their avatars. Zhou Xiaonuo works out that the next victim could be Shao Na and arranges to meet her. Unfortunately, she’s late for the appointment and meanwhile Shao Na gets an invitation on her phone to download a “final chapter”.

REVIEW

Mainland-funded The Perilous Internet Ring 网络凶铃 arrives courtesy of Japanese horror director Tsuruta Norio 鹤田法男, best known for Ring 0: The Birthday リング0  バースデイ(2000), a prequel to the Ring リング duo (1998-99) and the weakest of the trilogy. With a title that trades on the Chinese one for the trilogy (午夜凶铃, literally “Midnight’s Fearful Bell”), but with “midnight” 午夜 replaced by “internet” 网络, it aims to get a free ride on the whole Japanese horror cycle by hiring Tsuruta but is actually based on an early novel by Chinese mystery writer Ma Boyong 马伯庸, Died on QQ 她死在QQ上 (2006), written when he was in his mid-20s (see cover, left). Alas, the script, by five writers including Tsuruta, is clumsy and lumpy, with most of the plot explained in two speeches during the second half. Direction and performances are lacklustre, evoking dozens of other Mainland budget horrors rather than classic Japanese horror of the late 1980s/early 1990s. Box office was RMB15 million, way above the average for such fare but partly due to Tsuruta’s name.

Though it takes almost half the film for the main characters to catch on, the plot is extremely simple: members of a now-defunct internet forum who co-wrote an online novel are suddenly being picked off by what seems to be a long-haired female ghost. The trigger to each murder is when somebody receives a “final chapter” to the unfinished work – and each “final chapter” is different, featuring the intended victim(s). The film comes wreathed in warnings about young people becoming addicted to the internet – a lecture by a university professor, and even a long intertitle at the end of the movie warning of the internet’s potential for bad as well as good – but nobody seems to take much notice. This being a Mainland, not a Japanese, horror, all the hauntings have to have a rational explanation – laboriously delivered by two characters to the rather slow-witted detective in charge of the case. It has to be so, as the two young people “investigating” the deaths are more reactive than proactive in their roles.

As the student whose cousin was the first to die, Sun Yihan 孙伊涵, 23, who was so good in the lead role of My Heart Leaps Up 我心雀跃 (2016), mostly looks puzzled but determined, and is hardly pushed by the thin script. Taiwan actor Fu Mengbo 傅孟柏, 33, better known for his TV work, is okay as the initially arrogant postgrad student who helps her but, like Sun, is largely stuck in a low-wattage role. Key technical crew (d.p., composers, editor) are all Japanese, though bring no special edge to the proceedings to differentiate the film from an average Mainland horror. Editor Sunaga Hiroshi 须永弘志 has worked regularly with Tsuruta, while d.p. Kanda Hajime 神田创 shot Tsuruta’s zombie movie Z: Hatenaki kibou Z ゼット　 果てなき希望 (2014).

CREDITS

Presented by Yili Dasheng Chuanqi Film (CN), Hubei Film Studio (CN), Beijing Yagu Culture Consulting (CN), Chenjing Culture & Media (Ningbo) (CN), Chongqing Creator Tourism Culture Industry Holding (CN). Produced by Yili Dasheng Chuanqi Film (CN).

Script: Yang Yang, Tsuruta Norio, Ji Jialing, Wu Yuyao, Sun Ying. Novel: Ma Boyong. Photography: Kanda Hajime. Editing: Sunaga Hiroshi. Music: Obata Takahiro, Okawara Masaru. Art direction: Li Jia. Styling: Li Yimu. Sound: Han Lu, Liu Tao. Action: Wang Lei. Visual effects: Qin Yun (IX Pictures). Artistic supervision: Ma Boyong.

Cast: Sun Yihan (Zhou Xiaonuo), Fu Mengbo (Ma Ming), Han Pujun (Li, senior detective), Zhou Haodong (Tong, university professor), Han Qiuchi (Dai Yuncong/Shengzhou), Zhang Yunting (Shao Na/Ruxin), Wang Ziyi (Xia Weiyi), Ni Musi (Tang Jing/Jinghong), Zhang Jing (Jiang Qiong/Ming), Wang Mandi (Su Xiaojing/Liuli), Xia Mo (ghost), Xie Kaixuan (Zishan), Liu Peng (Zhou Xiaonuo’s father), Gan Ping (Zhou Xiaonuo’s mother), Jing Chuan (Tang Jing’s father), Feng Jing (Tang Jing’s mother), Li Ji (Xiaomu, junior detective), Dong He (Jiaxu, junior detective), Wang Lingbo (Zhang, reporter), Chang Zhetao.

Release: China, 30 Oct 2020.