Sadako is a shy girl who becomes a student of a drama club. The director likes her and think she is very talented girl, but other actors and actresses are jealous of her and find her strange, Toyama being the only exception. The lead actress of the play of the drama club suddenly dies, and the director chooses Sadako to be in her place. Many mysterious deaths starts to occur, at the same time, we have a reporter who knows the truth about Sadako's secrets and who is going to makes her life even harder, specially when everybody starts to be suspicious that Sadako was the responsible for all the deaths.

''Ringu 0: Bâsudei ''is the prequel to the horror film Ringu. Here, we can see all the reasons why Sadako became the bizarre spirit crazy for vengeance. The only problem is that the movie doesn't explain many things that will happen in the next movies( like the cursed videotape) or other things, like Sadako's twin sister (who doesn't see to have any logic at all in her existence).

In my opinion it is very weak as a horror movie, and staying only with the first''Ring'' would be a better choice for the series.

This prequel to RING tells the story of the unfortunate Sadako and her eventual demise, events that led up to the mysterious videotape curse that we know so well from the Japanese films and their American counterparts (the importance of the videotape is never explained, though, which is slightly disappointing). It tells a story that's entirely different from the formula we know so well from RING and RING 2, which is great because I think the format was starting to get a little stale during the second movie.

RING 0: BIRTHDAY is a slow build drama with plenty of suspense and foreboding to retain the viewer's interest. Sadako, as played by Yukie Nakama, is a sympathetic character often at the mercy of her fellow students. There's an element of CARRIE in the narrative, with Sadako depicted as 'other', forever at the mercy of the in-crowd and classed as an outsider by pretty much everybody else. Nakama does a really good job of getting the viewers on-side.

Strange, inexplicable events start occurring as the story goes on, until a dramatic set-piece that really pays off the tension that's come before. Then there's a final, all-out-horror half an hour which takes place in a woods and is more of a full-blooded body-count type affair. Although Hideo Nakata didn't return as director, he isn't missed with Norio Tsuruta ably handed the reins. If anything this is even more subtle and sedate than the previous two films in the series, but that seemingly laidback style hides an eerie, unsettling atmosphere. The scare sequences are well-handled and effective, and overall I felt this was a fine way to tie up the original trilogy.

This story happens thirty years before the first `Ring'. It tells, in a dramatic way, the story of Sadako Yamamura (Yukie Nakama) when she was a teenager, working on a theater stage as an actress and having a crush in Tôyama (Seiichi Tanabe). The problem is the very confused screenplay and the badly developed characters. I do not know whether the translation to Portuguese along the film is correct. I watched a VHS spoken in Japanese with subtitles in Portuguese, but when I watch a movie in English, I note that there are many mistakes or omissions in the translation to Portuguese. Therefore, I do not know how precise is the translation in the Brazilian VHS. I myself did not understand the story as a whole, but I agree it is scary. I do not dare to say that it is a bad movie, but unfortunately I felt lost in many parts of the plot. In the future, I intend to watch the three Japanese `Ring' in sequence, and maybe the story becomes clearer. The actress Yukie Nakama is an amazingly beautiful and delicate young woman. I was astonished with her beauty. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): ` Ring 0 – O Chamado – Birthday' (`Ring 0 – The Calling – Birthday')