Sure, but it was funded by American companies for primarily American audiences, yes? I'm sure that the American company told the Japanese guy to emphasize the connection.

Aside from the marketing images and one very stylistic in-movie pose that mimicked the one-eye-peeking-from-underneath-black-hair look of Ringu's Sadako, The Grudge was nearly a shot-for-shot remake of Ju-on. The big difference is that the director dropped one exceedingly confusing chapter set in 2008 ("Izumi") and replaced it with the backstory chapter involving Bill Pullman's character that came from the original's Japanese TV-movie precursor.

The big difference is that the director dropped one exceedingly confusing chapter set in 2008 ("Izumi") and replaced it with the backstory chapter involving Bill Pullman's character that came from the original's Japanese TV-movie precursor.

Which struck me as the biggest similarity between the two movies. Not the backstory itself, but experiencing it if that makes sense.

blah blah blah nothing to see here

I saw Pulp Fiction and both admired it and vowed never, ever to see another Tarantino movie.

People keep making Reservoir Dogs references in my presence. Anybody care to give me the five-minute summary? What's all this about shooting people in warehouses, for instance?

Reservoir Dogs: 6 guys in identical suits pull off a heist; the heist is botched; the guys attempt to reassemble at the meeting point; the personalities of the 6 guys end up determining who lives and who dies.

The characters are sort of types, although very vibrant types. The key relationship is one between a veteran thief and his presumed protege, the latter of whom is shot right as the movie begins and spends two hours bleeding to death while the plot unfolds in present tense and flashback.

In a lot of ways, I found the film warm and humane. And gross, but humane. Whereas, Pulp Fiction felt to me like a soulless beauty shot.

There is also an infamous torture scene.

These guys that hardly know each other rob a diamond wholesaler...a bank? I wasn't sure, but they end up hiding in this warehouse, after one of their guys gets shotand lies there bleeding all movie long. They have a patrolman hostage and somebody cuts his ear off while enjoying 70s radio and... I know that's not it... Betsy, you'd like "Jackie Brown," maybe...it's QT mixed with Elmore Leonard.

I adore Reservoir Dogs. I'm not sure how I'd describe it to sell it -- it's criminal, stylish, bloody.

And I'm most pointedly not a QT fan. Aside from RD and Jackie Brown I find him navel-gazing and smug.

It upset me but I couldn't stop watching.

They have a patrolman hostage and somebody cuts his ear off while enjoying 70s radio and...

"Clowns to the left of me...jokers to the right; here I am - stuck in the middle with you!"

eta Gives a whole new meaning to the term "earworm".