RINGU 0: BASUDEI

Ringu 0: Basudei (a.k.a. Ring 0: Birthday) is a 2000 Japanese horror film directed by Norio Tsuruta, and starring Yukie Nakama as Sadako Yamamura. The film is based on a Koji Suzuki's short story, and it is the prequel to the 1998 film Ringu.

Being the prequel to the original film, Ringu, this final installment in the series provides the background story of how Sadako becomes a vengeful wicked spirit. The story starts 30 years before the original Ringu (1998) film and shows Sadako as a shy, innocent-looking, drama student. Even though she works hard to get the main role, and the director thinks she is talented, she is still shadowed by the rest of the actresses. But after the death of the main actress in strange circumstances, Sadako gets the main role and thus the other performers start to get jealous of her. Meanwhile, a reporter whose husband died during Sadako's mother ESP demonstration, is investigating Sadako and her mother's past. The reporter thinks there's something very suspicious about Sadako, and that there should be a connection between her husband's dead and the current events at the academy where strange things have started to happen. When the reporter finally confronts Sadako, she realizes that there is more to know about the sweet looking Sadako, and that her father is keeping a secret from the eyes of the rest. It could even happen that Sadako is more innocent that everybody could have ever imagined.