Hideo Nakata could be called the godfather of contemporary Japanese horror, but he would probably hate the label. Regardless, this 52-year-old director of such genre classics as "Ring," "Ring 2" and "Honogurai Mizu no Soko kara (Dark Water)" has made J-horror — a combination of present-day settings and technology (the death-dealing video tapes in "Ring") and age-old lore about vengeful spirits — into a global brand.
I first met Nakata during his many interviews with local journalists at the Udine Far East Film Festival in Italy, which screened his thriller "L no Honto no Himitsu (L: Change the World)," the last film in the "Death Note" trilogy.
The first thing I noticed about him then, in 2008, was his accented-but-fluent English, honed over the frustrating years he had spent in Hollywood producing the widely panned 2005 film "The Ring Two," a sequel to the 2002 hit Hollywood remake of Nakata's "Ring."
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