I haven't said anything in a while, and I had nothing to contribute to the more recent threads, so I figured I'd post this in the general discussion.

I'm kind of surprised after watching both versions of this movie, the American version was pretty bad. Okay, so generally speaking, if most people had a dime for every time someone said the Japanese version fo something was better, they'd be millionaires.

However, I'm not one of those people who thinks something is awesome just because it's Japanese. Until recently, I wasn't really interested in "J-Horror". I don't really like the anime genre either. With other movies, comparing the Japanese and American versions, I found that-

Ring/The Ring - The American version had a lot of annoying stuff, but the main weaknesses were because the Japanese version didn't follow the original novel, not because of the American version.

Ju-On: The Grudge/The Grudge - For the most part they're about even, and a lot of the time the stories are identical. Where they differ, the Japanese version has better atmosphere, but the American version keeps the central character... well, more of a central character (the Japanese version's central character was absent throughout a lot of the movie). While they're not really that scary, though, both movies make me uneasy around my own home.

Ju-On: The Grudge 2/The Grudge 2 - The American version is closer to an adaptation of Ju-On: The Grudge. Seriously, at least two thirds of the American sequel are things from the first movie in the Japanese version. So it's pretty hard to compare.

Dark Water - Neither the American version, nor the general concept made me care enough to watch the Japanese version.

So... I wouldn't really say i'm biased towards the Japanese versions. This time, however-

After the movie Pulse was advertised in cinemasn, I had no interest in seeing it. Or its original version, Kairo. But last Friday Kairo was on the Horror Channel. It was actually the third movie that scared me throughout most of the movie. I've heard that the movie cuts away before you see anything "scary". To be honest, when the movie would get to this point, I usually found myself mentally asking the movie not to show something, I was worried it would be too scary... and I've been almost unfazed by seeing all of the usual "scary" movies (Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Jaws, The Exorcist, etc)...

Anyway, I decided to buy the DVD of both Kairo and Pulse, since for once I was actually interested in how the different versions compared.

Well, here's the main problem. In the original, red tape stopped ghosts getting out of rooms. When people removed the tape went in they would meet a ghost. In the American version, the first time red tape is seen, it's on the outside of a room,so it has the same use. But after that, it's used to stop ghosts getting into rooms. Furthermore, when people are given the tape, the note that came with it says 'It keeps them out. Don't know how.' So actually, the American version is contradicting itself.

As it goes on, the movie becomes more of a mess... some recurring and even central characters are flat-out missing from the American version. After the movie starts with one guy killing himself, there's four people left in their group. One more guy encounters a ghost, then the group get a package containing rolls of red tape for 'proection'. The first guy sent them before he killed himself. See the problem there? The first guy was their friend, so he should know there were four more people in their group, and sent four rolls of red tape.

Also, ghosts are supposed to be comming through the radio, cell phones, etc. which has been used in other movies, but in the American version, its made to seem like the ghosts themselves are techonological, in that they can't go anywhere where there isn't a cell phone signal or something. It's also worth noting, while ghosts appeared on the internet and such in the Japanese version, they weren't exactly comming through it.

Another thing worht mentinoing is one instance of 'foreshadowing'. One of the central characters is watching hte news, and the channel gets disrupted, causing the TV picture to cut off the top of his head, showing the news logo instead. Originally this was near the start. In the American version it's closer to the end of the movie. Yes, the 'foreshadowing' is shown long after things start happening.

And the people who made the American movie tried to make it like other movies imported from Japan, with the ghost(s) showing up everywhere. In the original, there were a few ghosts, but they none of them even had five minutes of screentime. In this version they're appearing in every place like the ghosts from The Grudge.