The Ring/Trivia

• Actor Allusion: Brian Cox plays Richard Morgan, whose wife killed herself because their (adopted) child's uncontrollable psychic powers burned horrific images into her mind. One year later, in X 2 X Men United, Brian Cox plays William Stryker, whose wife killed herself because their (mutant) child's uncontrollable psychic powers burned horrific images into her mind.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: The Ring Two is chock full of this. Samara's mother is none other than Sissy Spacek, Smug Shrink Dr. Emma Temple is played by Elizabeth Perkins, and one of the doctors is James Lesure of Las Vegas. Gary Cole even pops up as a real estate agent. Oh, and Samara is also Samantha Darko.
  • Samara is also Lilo and Chihiro.
  • Okazaki from the first two Japanese movies is played by Yûrei Yanagi, who appeared as Kobayashi in the first ~Ju-on~ film.
  • Patrick Jane plays the well intentioned Max Rourke.
  • Well, The Ring had Brian "Hannibal Lektor" Cox and Jane Alexander.
  • Noah's assistant Beth is Abby from NCIS
  • Amber Tamblyn is the remake's first on-screen victim, and Rachael Bella is her best friend.
• The Other Darrin: Sadako is played by a number of actresses over the years - Rie Inou (Ring, Ring 2), Hinako Saeki (Rasen), Yukie Nakama (Ring 0), Ai Hashimoto (Sadako 3D), Ayane Miura (Ring Kanzenban), Tae Kimura (Ring: The Final Chapter), and Akiko Yada (Rasen TV series).
• Prop Recycling: The "COPY" tape from the 2002 remake is the actual "COPY" tape from the 1998 original.
• Shrug of God: In the American remake, fans of the film note that the victims of Samara look like they'd been drowned, which would make sense considering Samara's predicament. However, both Gore Verbinski and makeup FX artist Dick Smith said that wasn't their intention. They just wanted to make them look creepy.
• Technology Marches On: Pfft, cursed videotape.
  • Though Sadako 3D gets around this, by having the curse apparently spread via Web Video...
  • And now smartphones as of Sadako 3D 2...
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original ending for the remake had the video getting placed in a video store dropbox and placed on a shelf of recommended videos. This would have implied that the Ring virus would spread across Seattle and possibly the entire country.
  • In a deleted scene of the American remake, Noah finds the innkeeper's corpse in the middle of the lake near the cabins. It is hinted he had watched the videotape and tried to flee Samara.
  • The US remake had originally a storyline where Rachel shows the tape to a death row prisoner played by Chris Cooper. This was dropped, but a newspaper article about Cooper's character can still be seen.
  • The creators of the American version also had plans to include an all-CG scene which takes place inside a VCR when the cursed videotape is created. This never went beyond pre-visualization.

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