One year later, One Missed Call 2 continues the story of cursed cell phone calls.

Kindergarten teacher Kyoko Okudera and her friend Madoka Uchiyama are eating at the restaurant where Kyoko's boyfriend Naoto Sakurai works. The chef, Mr. Wang, gets one of the cursed calls from his daughter's phone, which immediately sets his face on fire.

Yumi Nakamura - the survivor of the first film - is still missing ever since she killed Hiroshi Yamashita a year before. Now, the killings are about to start all over again.

These cursed cell calls are happening all over Taiwan, always leaving behind traces of coal. The truth is that Mimiko has not been stopped and neither has her reign of terror.

The second of these films is directed by Renpei Tsukamoto, who has spent much of his time directing TV miniseries.

This is a superior sequel to the 2003 original, directed then by Takashi Miike. ONE MISSED CALL 2 is better because there's a better director on hand, Rempei Tsukamoto, who actually seems to believe in his source material, rather than Miike who adopted an offhand, workmanlike approach in the original film. This one benefits from similar scares but a deeper plot that goes further into the origins of the curse story to try and find out that makes the ghost tick, rather than just being a string of gruesome and inexplicable murders. It also recalls the kind of Hong Kong horrors of the 1980s in which characters head off to foreign locales (here it's Taiwan) and run foul of backwards characters and the kind of primitive superstition that's supposed to have disappeared in the modern world.

The acting from the cast is excellent – whether it's the young couple caught up in the chaos or the female journalist trying to fix her own mental problems as well as solve the case. This is the main reason the film is better than the original – the actors just feel better here and the film goes off in a different direction, rather than just copying the formula of JU-ON: THE GRUDGE or RING, as did the original. That said, there are still plenty of effective scare moments and some grisly deaths, so fans who enjoy the formula will find something here for them as well. Camera-work and effects are fine. This may not be the loudest, most shocking or original horror film out there, but its mix of an intriguing and horrific storyline and solid chills and acting make it a superior one.

In Japan, the daycare teacher Kyoko Okudera (Mimura) is convinced by her colleague and friend Madoka to visit her boyfriend Naoto Sakurai (Yû Yoshizawa) in the restaurant where he works instead of studying as planned. When the owner Mr. Wang answers the cellular call of his daughter, he receives a message telling that he would die in an accident in the kitchen that immediately comes true. Later, Naoto is visited by the snoopy journalist Takako Nozoe (Asaka Seto),who is researching the death call, and she plays the deadly ring tone for him. He recalls that not only Mr. Wang, but also Madoka have received similar calls. Meanwhile Kyoko is talking to Madoka and she sees a ghost in her phone. She rushes to Madoka's apartment and finds her dead in the bathtub, with Naoto and Takako arriving immediately after. Their investigation shows that Mimiko's grandfather Wei Zhang is in Taiwan and Takako asks her former husband Yuting to search him. Meanwhile, Kyoko receives a phone call and the autopsies of Mr. Wang and Madoka indicate the presence of coal dust in their lungs and no candies in their mouths. Takako, Naoto and Kyoko travel to Taiwan expecting to solve the mystery and save Kyoko from her fate.

"Chakushin Ari 2" is scary like most of the Asian horror movies, and has a promising beginning supported by a good sequel of Takashi Miike's "Chakushin Ari". I saw both movies in sequence and I found many explanations about characters and situations of the first movie. However, like in the first story, the conclusion the movie is confused, not clear, needing interpretation of the pretentious plot point that contradicts the whole plot and character development; therefore, the screenplay writer Minako Daira or the director Renpei Tsukamoto or both failed since they were not able to transmit a clear conclusion of the story to the audience. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Uma Chamada Perdida 2" ("One Missed Call 2")