Review: Audition (Japan, 1999)

Audition (オーディション) is the much talked about Japanese horror film directed by the infamous Takashi Miike. The film is a story of an older man attempting to find love after losing his wife seven years before. To find himself a woman the man holds an audition, with his friend and he comes across a girl he believes to be “the one”.

It’s hard to review this film without going on to spoil the end, so I urge you to buy, borrow, rent, steal, download or watch online … basically go to any length you can to see this film and avoid getting information on the actual storyline as the film will lose some of its impact.

Because of my ever growing hunger for films from the East I couldn’t avoid people mentioning this film. I’ve heard everybody from Jonathan Ross to Quentin Tarantino praise it. So I kind of already had an inkling into what was going to take place.

So watch it, then come back and highlight what is under this sentence.

Audition isn’t you’re typical horror film, but of course you know this now, seeing as I’ve told you to watch it and you shouldn’t be reading this if you haven’t. It sets itself up as some sort of romantic drama in which we find Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) in search of woman to marry and the story moves at a steady pace. Although we get treated to little things that could be to come, such as Yoshikawa’s (Jun Kunimura) uncertainty about Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina).

And of course Yoshikawa was right to be uncertain, because Asami’s a fucking basket case. The torture scene is incredible. It just counterbalances the movie so well. It’s not for the squeamish, as my girlfriend found out as she watched through the gaps in her fingers and complained about another “romantic night in”. The acting is brilliant too, Eihi Shiina pulls it off as a shy girl, but you get the feeling something else is going off and it’s hard not to feel sorry for Aoyama and you do want him to find a new love.

I was unsure if Audition would live up to the hype, especially after seeing Ichi The Killer (don’t get me wrong, great film – but I was promised that I’d feel sick, which I didn’t), but it did. Kudos Takashi Miike.