If one wishes to compare the believability of the existence of vengeful spirits from beyond the grave to the believability of that many Americans somehow existing in such a purely Japanese environment, I'll take the ghosts any day.
Hollywood has always felt that an American face in a Japanese crowd would assure financial success in the American box office. In this case, the producers of _The Grudge_ apparently decided that many American faces would make the product many times more successful. I just didn't work. If they were that insistent on a large American cast, I think the producers would have had a far better product had they remade the film in America. After all, it worked for _The Ring_.
If you can get past that major credibility issue, _The Grudge_ is a pretty good tale. It weaves together the better segments of the tele-play and theatrical versions of _Juon_, a spooky Japanese tale about a murder in the past and all the subsequent people who were connected with the place where it happened. I gave this film a six out of ten rating.
Hollywood has always felt that an American face in a Japanese crowd would assure financial success in the American box office. In this case, the producers of _The Grudge_ apparently decided that many American faces would make the product many times more successful. I just didn't work. If they were that insistent on a large American cast, I think the producers would have had a far better product had they remade the film in America. After all, it worked for _The Ring_.
If you can get past that major credibility issue, _The Grudge_ is a pretty good tale. It weaves together the better segments of the tele-play and theatrical versions of _Juon_, a spooky Japanese tale about a murder in the past and all the subsequent people who were connected with the place where it happened. I gave this film a six out of ten rating.