# Ring Virus (링)
**Ring Virus** (링; also released as *The Ring Virus*) is a 1999 South Korean horror film directed by Kim Dong-bin (김동빈, born 1958), an official remake of Hideo Nakata's 1998 Japanese film *Ring*, itself adapted from Suzuki Koji's bestselling 1991 novel *Ring*.[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) • [2](https://file.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html) It was released in South Korea on June 12, 1999, and is recorded as the first Korean-Japanese co-production in which both countries shared the production capital.[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) • [3](https://unesco.or.kr/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/%ED%95%9C%EC%9D%BC%EA%B5%90%EC%82%AC%EB%8C%80%ED%99%94-20%EB%85%84%EC%82%AC.pdf)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | June 12, 1999, South Korea; Korean language; horror, mystery, thriller[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) |
| Director | Kim Dong-bin (김동빈), whose previous film was *Mom Has a Lover* (엄마에게 애인이 생겼어요)[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) • [4](https://cine21.com/movie/info/?movie_id=2718) |
| Running time | 110 minutes per the Korean Film Council database; Cine21 lists 108 minutes[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) • [4](https://cine21.com/movie/info/?movie_id=2718) |
| Source | Official remake of *Ring* (Nakata Hideo, 1998), based on Suzuki Koji's novel[2](https://file.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html) |
| Co-production | First Korean-Japanese capital co-production; the 1.25 billion won budget was split between Korea and Japan[3](https://unesco.or.kr/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/%ED%95%9C%EC%9D%BC%EA%B5%90%EC%82%AC%EB%8C%80%ED%99%94-20%EB%85%84%EC%82%AC.pdf) |
| Lead cast | Shin Eun-kyung as reporter Hong Sun-ju, Jung Jin-young as pathologist Choi Yeol, Bae Doona as Park Eun-seo[4](https://cine21.com/movie/info/?movie_id=2718) |
| Box office | 332,354 Seoul admissions, the ninth best-selling Korean film of 1999, running seven weeks[5](https://www.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html) |
| Rating | Adults only (청소년 관람불가; 18+ restricted)[4](https://cine21.com/movie/info/?movie_id=2718) • [6](https://www.koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/ring_virus/ring_virus.htm) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
News reporter Hong Sun-ju (홍선주) suspects foul play when her niece and the niece's three friends die of heart attacks at the exact same moment after returning from a trip together.[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) Following the victims' trail, she finds an unlabeled videotape at the condominium where the group stayed and plays it. The tape carries grotesque images and a message that whoever watches it will die within a week; the portion of the message containing the life-saving solution to the curse is incomprehensible.[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) • [2](https://file.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html)
Choi Yeol (최열), the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Sun-ju's niece and judged the deaths supernatural, is himself exposed to the tape and joins the investigation.[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) • [2](https://file.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html) He points out that the images on the tape may not be video recordings at all but telekinetic recordings of the past, projected through a girl with supernatural powers.[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) The tape's maker is Park Eun-seo (박은서), a psychic woman who, despite her beauty, lived an unhappy life because of her intersex body and her mother's suicide; her sorrow became rage, her rage became a curse, and the curse produced the death tape.[4](https://cine21.com/movie/info/?movie_id=2718) • [6](https://www.koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/ring_virus/ring_virus.htm) Sun-ju, who learns that her own daughter has watched the tape, stakes her survival on contacting Eun-seo, who years earlier had been thrown into a well.[4](https://cine21.com/movie/info/?movie_id=2718) • [2](https://file.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html)
## Production and co-production status
The film was produced by AFDF Korea and Hanmac Films (한맥영화), with Hanmac also handling distribution.[1](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043) • [4](https://cine21.com/movie/info/?movie_id=2718) The screenplay is credited to Kong Su-chang (공수창) and Shim Hye-won (심혜원), with cinematography by Hwang Cheol-hyeon and music by Won Il and Jang Young-gyu.[6](https://www.koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/ring_virus/ring_virus.htm) • [7](https://eofftv.com/ring-virus-1999/)
Its financing marked a change in Korean-Japanese film cooperation. Earlier co-productions had been funded entirely by Japan with a Korean director hired; *Ring Virus* was the first in which Korean and Japanese capital shared the cost, splitting a production budget of 1.25 billion won.[3](https://unesco.or.kr/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/%ED%95%9C%EC%9D%BC%EA%B5%90%EC%82%AC%EB%8C%80%ED%99%94-20%EB%85%84%EC%82%AC.pdf) A UNESCO history of Korean-Japanese dialogue records it as the first Korean-Japanese capital co-production to open, in 1999, and notes that it drew popularity comparable to the original.[3](https://unesco.or.kr/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/%ED%95%9C%EC%9D%BC%EA%B5%90%EC%82%AC%EB%8C%80%ED%99%94-20%EB%85%84%EC%82%AC.pdf)
## Place in the Ring franchise
Suzuki Koji's novel posited that the cursed videotape was literally viral in nature, a microbiological plotline that was removed from both Nakata's 1998 Japanese film and [Gore Verbinski](https://www.edgepedia.org/gore-verbinski)'s 2002 American remake but resurfaces in Kim Dong-bin's Korean version.[8](https://lmsspada.kemdiktisaintek.go.id/pluginfile.php/479326/mod_folder/content/0/The%20Oxford%20Handbook%20of%20Japanese%20Cinema%20%28%20PDFDrive%20%29.pdf) Reviewers have described the film as positioning itself as a re-adaptation of the novel rather than a straight remake of Nakata's film: it keeps novel-specific elements such as the "watch till the end" and "whoever watches this will die in a week" messages at the beginning and end of the tape, while also sharing some exact shots and moments with Nakata's film, including ones that do not appear in the novel.[9](https://horrornews.net/12321/film-review-the-ring-virus-1999/) • [10](https://www.ghoulsmagazine.com/articles/ring-1998-vs-the-ring-2002-j-horror-movies)
The Korean version also changes the protagonist's circumstances. In the novel and the Japanese film the investigator is a television news director; in the Korean film Sun-ju is a newspaper reporter, a divorced single mother raising a daughter, and the male investigator is a disgraced former neurosurgeon working night shifts and autopsies at a run-down hospital.[6](https://www.koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/ring_virus/ring_virus.htm) • [11](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/ring)
## Reception
The film drew 332,354 admissions in Seoul, placing ninth among Korean films for the year, in a 1999 market where Korean films took 39.7 percent of nationwide attendance.[5](https://www.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html) Reviewer Darcy Paquet called it likely the scariest film to come out of the Korean industry's recent turn toward horror, praising Kim Dong-bin's coldly aesthetic direction, its palette of bluish dark colors, and [Shin Eun-kyung](https://www.edgepedia.org/shin-eun-kyung)'s performance, while judging that it lacked the earthy mysticism of the Japanese original but offered a more detailed rendering of the plot and some interesting variations on the story.[2](https://file.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html) On IMDb it holds a user rating of 5.8/10 from about 2,600 voters, with one award nomination.[12](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289424/)
## References
1. [The Ring Virus (1999), Korean Film Council (KOFIC) film database](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19990043)
2. [Darcy's Korean Film Page – 1999 (The Ring Virus review)](https://file.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html)
3. [유네스코 한일교사대화 20년사 (UNESCO Korea-Japan Teachers' Dialogue, 20-Year History)](https://unesco.or.kr/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/%ED%95%9C%EC%9D%BC%EA%B5%90%EC%82%AC%EB%8C%80%ED%99%94-20%EB%85%84%EC%82%AC.pdf)
4. [링 (The Ring Virus) 상세정보, 씨네21 (Cine21)](https://cine21.com/movie/info/?movie_id=2718)
5. [Darcy's Korean Film Page – 1999 (box office and year in review)](https://www.koreanfilm.org/kfilm99.html)
6. [링 (1999, Ring Virus, The), KoreanFilm.co.kr database](https://www.koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/ring_virus/ring_virus.htm)
7. [Ring Virus (1999), EOFFTV – The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film and Television](https://eofftv.com/ring-virus-1999/)
8. [The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Cinema (chapter on the Ring franchise)](https://lmsspada.kemdiktisaintek.go.id/pluginfile.php/479326/mod_folder/content/0/The%20Oxford%20Handbook%20of%20Japanese%20Cinema%20%28%20PDFDrive%20%29.pdf)
9. [Film Review: The Ring Virus (1999), HorrorNews.net](https://horrornews.net/12321/film-review-the-ring-virus-1999/)
10. [J-Horror: Ring (1998) versus The Ring (2002), Ghouls Magazine](https://www.ghoulsmagazine.com/articles/ring-1998-vs-the-ring-2002-j-horror-movies)
11. [Ring (Nakata Hideo), International Film Festival Rotterdam 2000](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/ring)
12. [The Ring Virus (1999), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289424/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Psychological horror films › Psychological horror films, 1990s and 2000s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license