The Ring Virus

Teenager Sang-Mi dies mysteriously at her home, along with three friends who had slept over at a hotel resort. Sun-Joo, Sang-Mi's aunt and a journalist, discovers the four teens all stayed the night at the resort and realizes their deaths are linked. She decides to investigate further to uncover the truth behind the seemingly random tragedy.

Sun-Joo finds an unmarked videotape after a pager message and a note left in the resort's guestbook. The tape shows disparate imagery—a tidal wave, an old woman speaking in a thick dialect, and ends with a shot of an old well with a chilling warning about watching it being fatal in a week. The rest of the tape has been overwritten, increasing the mystery surrounding its origin.

After watching the tape, Sun-Joo receives a phone call that carries the same music box-like tune heard on the tape. The eerie call intensifies the sense that the curse is real and imminent. She resolves to trace where the tape came from and what it means.

Sun-Joo enlists Dr. Choi-Yeol, the pathologist who performed the autopsies, and together they copy the tape. They begin to search for its origin, hypothesizing that it was created by a human mind with psychic abilities rather than a conventional camera. The stakes rise as time ticks toward the looming deadline.

Their investigation leads to Park Eun-Suh, a gifted psychic who once predicted a tidal disaster. They uncover a family history with psychic abilities, including Eun-Suh's mother and a troubled past. The trail suggests the tape is connected to Eun-Suh's abilities and trauma.

Sun-Joo and Choi-Yeol travel to Eun-Suh's island home and learn she once predicted a tidal wave. A fierce storm hits the island, heightening urgency as they search for answers. They also encounter a striking painting of Eun-Suh by her cousin Oh Kyung-Pil in her house.

The pair confront Kyung-Pil and recognize him from the videotape. He admits a past relationship with Eun-Suh and details the assault near an old well, revealing that Eun-Suh was intersex and that he strangled her, dumping her body in the well. His confession adds a crucial piece to the murder mystery behind the curse.

They learn the sanatorium once occupied the site now hosting the holiday resort and return to the crawlspace under the balcony to uncover more clues. Descending into the site, they begin to drain the old well with buckets, racing against Sun-Joo's looming one-week deadline. The atmosphere intensifies as rain and wind lash the resort.

Sun-Joo uncovers Eun-Suh's skeleton in the well, and her one-week deadline passes. The discovery initially seems to confirm that they might have broken the curse, but the ensuing events indicate the danger is not over. The tension remains as the truth about the curse deepens.

As Choi-Yeol's deadline nears, his television turns on by itself and the spectre of Eun-Suh crawls from the screen, killing him. Sun-Joo is horrified to realize that the curse is not broken yet. The event confirms the haunting power of the videotape and its consequences.

Choi-Yeol's death precipitates a realization: the curse operates like a virus that can be copied and shown to another person to pass it along. Sun-Joo understands that the only way to counter it is to duplicate the tape and spread it deliberately. This insight reframes their strategy from escape to inoculation through transmission.

Determined to save Boram, Sun-Joo drives to her parents' house with the tape to show them, hoping to pass along the curse to someone else and thus avert Boram's fate. The plan depends on exposing Boram to the tape before her own one-week deadline arrives. The tension peaks as she races to deliver the warning.