Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)

Students discuss various urban legends at Seian University, among which are the cursed video tape. Two students accidentally discover the tape and freak out as the previous viewers had died. They consult their professor who is excited about the tape and wants to meet Sadako, the Ring girl with the long hair. Meanwhile is a subplot, a house is haunted by Kayako, the Juon/Grudge double jointed kid.How they get these two demons/spirits to fight would be a plot spoiler revealed at about an hour into the film...and I still have my reservations. Of course my biggest question mark about all these exorcism films going all the way back to the original is the ending. A demon possesses someone and the priest then takes the demon inside himself and does the suicide thing. Demon dies too. Why exactly does a spiritual/metaphysical demon end when the host dies? Right before the priest hits the ground... go back to someone else. It is a distance thing like a six cubit rule? Who is making these silly rules up and why does everyone follow them? The film was not as good as the originals. Jump scares were ineffective. The wise guy exorcist was the highlight of the film and added a smile element to the feature.Guide: No swearing, sex, nudity or cute school uniforms

Watch the original films or the remakes, they are all better than this cross over. This one is too rushed to pull you into the stories and the action between Sadako and Kayako is practically non-existent. The actual action between them was probably around 3 minutes long and most of that is just them staring or walking. The ending was, imho, the most uninteresting option they could have taken. Clearly a cheap money grab which is one reason why Japanese film, anime and games are on a decline. It used to be about quality and originality in the 80s and 90s but since then it has been a in your face money grab and they don't even bother to hide it. When anything becomes popular, they ruin it in time (a bit like Star Wars here).

Schoolgirl Natsumi (Aimi Satsukawa) asks her friend Yuri (Mizuki Yamamoto) if she can transfer her parents' wedding video onto DVD; in order to do so, the girls buy an old VHS player in which they discover an old tape that turns out to be a fabled cursed video that, once watched, invokes deadly long haired spook Sadako (Elly Nanami), who materialises to kill her victims two days later.After their initial attempts to break the curse fail, Natsumi and Yuri's only hope lies with spiritual medium Kyozo (Masanobu Andô) and his young assistant Tamao (Maiko Kikuchi), who decide to pit Sadako against grudge spirits Kayako (Runa Endo) and Toshio (Rintaro Shibamoto) in a battle for the girls' souls. Meanwhile, schoolgirl Suzuka (Tina Tamashiro) also finds herself cursed when she enters the haunted home of Kayako and her son Toshio — can Suzuka's life also be saved as a result of the supernatural battle?Films featuring onryō (vengeful Japanese spooks) really do very little for me: I thought that Ringu (Ring) was mediocre and found The Grudge (Ju-on) incredibly boring. Director Kôji Shiraishi tries to inject a little life into the tired genre with this mash-up of these well known franchises, but all he succeeds in making is a film that, rather predictably, falls somewhere between mediocre and incredibly boring.Following lots of talk and some not-at-all-scary scenes in which the spooks make brief appearances, the titular fight between the ghosts finally ensues, and it's extremely underwhelming, like two women having a pathetic cat-fight, with little kid Toshio sticking up for his mum. If you're an avid fan of Japanese ghost movies, you might get a kick out of seeing these legendary spirits scratch and claw at each other, but I'll never understand the appeal.

Being a massive fan of the 'Ring' series, this was a must watch. I found out about it when my Japanese friend and I were googling pictures of J-Horror, and this front cover came up. Recognising Sadako, I asked my friend what the title was (as I was unable to read the kanji). She said it was the name of two ladies. Later, I did some research to find the other name was 'Kayako', so I gave the movie a watch. Overall, it was actually quite entertaining. The new interpretation of the cursed video was excellent, and the design of Kayako's house was well done. The two exorcists were also well- portrayed (particularly Kyozo who was played by the same guy who portrayed Kiriyama in 'Battle Royale'. Really wish he was in more movies - an exceptional actor who always does unique and interesting portrayals of his characters). The biggest let-down of the movie was the ending. Worthwhile watching though.