Asia Scares America

The big horror-movie hit on U.S. screens this fall is about a videotape that kills you when you watch it. But The Ring would not have earned more than $100 million in its first five weeks of North American release — would not have been made at all — if its executive producer hadn't watched a scary videotape from Japan.

Asian movie fans know The Ring as Ringu . This ghost-story thriller — about a journalist drawn into the video mystery at the peril of herself and her family — was a novel, then a TV film, and then...