Three Strikes: Week 49

Koji Suzuki's Ring. No, not a title of a niche video on YouPorn, but a novel translated from Japanese to English and also adapted for the screen by The World's Scariest Man, Hideo Nataka. A journalist in Yokohama stumbles across a story involving a videotape that kills you after you watch it. Once he's watched it, he has a week to save his own life.

I watched the Japanese movie in '02 and I crapped myself. It's brilliant, and even if you've seen the (lame) American remake, you should watch the original. It's on a par with Don't Look Now as one of the most intense horrors ever made.

But this is a book review, dammit! How was the book?! Well, not great. It's much slower than the film, much more detailed and- if memory serves me- much weirder. It's still an interesting tale, but the behaviour of the characters is kind of strange. Their decisions and admittances are odd, but somehow drive the story in ways I don't remember seeing in the film. The translations from Japanese to British English are occasionally clunky and unintentionally comedic.

“Yoko paused to catch his breath. There was a loud gulping sound. It wasn't clear which one of them had swallowed his saliva.”

I've found, over the last few years, a number of lame books that have been adapted into surprisingly good films. This is one of them. Nataka's team picked the best bits and made a decent, concise story out of it. I meant to watch it again before today, actually. You should give it a whirl.

I've hammered the gym and have made no PBs. I've managed to get on the popular machines by going before work and early on Sunday mornings. It's not difficult to get up early at the weekend when all of your friends are getting married and having babies...