Japan The Ring returned 5.2× its production cost, earning $249.3M against a $48.0M budget — one of the highest-return Japan films in our catalog.
Synopsis
“Before you die, you see…”
Rachel Keller is a journalist investigating a videotape that may have killed four teenagers. There is an urban legend about this tape: the viewer will die seven days after watching it. Rachel tracks down the video… and watches it. Now she has just seven days to unravel the mystery of the Ring so she can save herself and her son.
Audience Engagement
5,706 audience reviews — more than 100% of Japan films in our index.
Popularity sits at the 88th percentile among Japan films.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 55m runtime, production spent $417K per minute on screen and earned $2.2M per minute back.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with The Ring. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Horror + Mystery in Japan
60 Japan titles in our catalog blend the Horror and Mystery genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding The Ring itself).
The 2001–2003 Japan Window
The Ring holds position #131 of 247 Japan films in the 2001–2003 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 2000s Japan Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 2000s in Japan, 1020 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when The Ring premiered alongside 81 others.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 81 other Japan films in 2002.
The 1462nd Japan title from Japan we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1899).
Our Japan catalog contains 4,579 titles in total (2,908 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on The Ring, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- drowning · 5
- horse · 4
- mysterious death · 3
- cabin in the woods · 2
- well · 2
- telephone · 1
- journalist · 17
- curse · 17
- videotape · 10
- paranormal · 9
- remake · 101
- supernatural · 89
- ghost · 84
- investigation · 45
- island · 41
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #2,705 of 4,579 Japan films indexed here (41st percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is -0.2 points below the Japan average of 6.9/10.
Among Japan Horror productions specifically: #79 of 391 (top 20%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | Japan |
|---|---|
| All Production Countries | Japan, United States of America |
| Original Language | En |
| Production Companies | BenderSpink, Parkes+MacDonald Image Nation, DreamWorks Pictures, TOHO |
| Runtime | 1h 55m |
| Release Date | October 18, 2002 |
| IMDb | tt0298130 |