Ringu 0

In the present, a schoolgirl calls her friend to tell her about how she watched the cursed videotape. She also recounts about how she experienced a nightmare, where she witnessed Sadako being murdered by Dr. Ikuma. Thirty years ago, Akiko Miyaji, the fiancé of a fellow reporter who was killed during Shizuko's infamous ESP demonstration, interviews Sadako's former elementary school teacher Sudo about Sadako's nensha powers. Sudo recounts how Sadako was withdrawn as a child and predicted her classmates drowning in the ocean during a field trip. Meanwhile, a 19-year-old Sadako joins an acting troupe as an understudy as a therapy to her nightmares suggested by her doctor. Sadako has natural beauty and charisma for the play, infuriating her senior, Aiko Hazuki, whose relationship with the troupe director, Yusaku Shigemori, sours due to the latter's newfound favor for the young trainee. Aiko is later found murdered by a figure in white, thus Sadako takes her place for the upcoming play as the lead character. Sadako attracts and reciprocates the attention of the troupe sound director, Hiroshi Toyama, much to the disappointment of costume designer and Toyama's girlfriend, Etsuko Tachihara. While praised by Shigemori and Toyama, other troupe members grow to distrust and fear Sadako, as they suspect that she is the one who caused Aiko's death and other supernatural occurrences, including strange dreams pertaining to a well and an apparition of a girl in white with long hair very similar to Sadako.