Ringu did it better, and without the Hollywood excess.

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2002)

Spoilers maybe.
I saw the original Ringu first, so there's no way I can talk about the remake without comparing the two. I really did enjoy the remake, particularly Naomi Watts' performance, but I do think the original is marginally better. In both versions, the tension is extremely tangible and builds slowly, the atmosphere is equally creepy, but the original isn't riddled with Scary PartsT designed to make you jump, which American horror movies just can't seem to leave out. I appreciated that, and because of it, the ending was more effective in the original. Not to mention during the end sequence they didn't need to (but probably didn't have the budget to anyway) use digital effects to make it look "cool".
Seriously, the ending of the original is much more well done. And much creepier. As so many great foreign and independent movies have proven, a bigger budget does not necessarily equal a better movie. With a low budget, the movie's not going to be clogged with pointless special effects and filler, but instead concentrate more on telling a story. In that respect, Ringu succeeded marvelously. The remake did as well, it just did it flashier. It tired to impressive its audience with eye candy, instead of just letting this great story tell itself.
Also, the video tape sequence is better in the original. When a movie gets Americanized, I always dread what invariably happens--it overexplains things. Such is the case here. I completely got the all the elements of the story in the original, even if the video tape didn't make sense. In the remake, they just felt the need to explain everything, severely detracting from the supernatural mystique of the story (which is at its heart, a traditional ghost story--the best kind of horror story). The original doesn't need to beat you over the head to get your attention, particularly in the case of the subliminal reference to the title, and I appreciate that as well.
The remake definitely has better actors going for it, but I don't think it stands up quite as well. Whichever version you see first will probably have the scarier ending though, and thus may appear a consistently better film. I'd give the original 8/10, and the remake 7/10.