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Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Miyuki Matsuda, Renji Ishibashi, Jun Kunimura ... see more see more... , Tetsu Sawaki

Controversial Japanese director Takashi Miike creates this unnerving horror film about a widowed TV producer auditioning prospective wives. In his search, one candidate particularly stands out, a love... read more read more...ly ex-ballerina dressed in white. The widower cannot believe his good fortune, until he starts looking more closely at his potential bride-to-be: her autobiographical details don't quite check out, she has a number of ugly scars on her legs, and he learns that people in her life have a habit of disappearing. When he discovers a man trussed up in her living room with his tongue and feet lopped off, he concludes that she is perhaps not the woman of his dreams. Audition was screened at the 1999 Vancouver Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

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80% liked it

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78% liked it

63 critics

R, 1 hr. 55 min.

Directed by: Takashi Miike

Release Date: January 1, 1999

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DVD Release Date: June 4, 2002

Stats: 4,932 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (4,932)

  • garyX
    May 9, 2012
    garyX
    A TV executive decides to remarry 7 years after the death of his first wife and sets up a fake film audition to look for suitable candidates. This stunningly clever psychological horror leads your perceptions up the garden path and then cheerfully garrotes them with cheesewire; t... read morehe first half of the film could easily be mistaken for a breezy mainstream romance, but once Aoyama begins to look into his potential fiancee's past the tone darkens into a horrific blend of reality, fantasy and nightmare. Miike takes a familiar formula, this time the scorned woman-turns stalker idea and turns it on it's head; not only does he fail to follow the usual expectations of the genre, he actually uses them against you. The use of colour, and particularly sound is stunning and the way he transforms the viewer from voyeur to participant by placing you in Asami's interview chair and later making you the victim of her gleefully child-like torture is deeply unsettling. Audition won't be to everyone's taste, but fans of stalker/serial killer movies or J-horror should not miss it.
  • jmj26
    March 4, 2012
    jmj26
    Audition is a particularly hard film to grasp. On one hand, it's a romance. On the other (as can be seen from the cover), it's a horror film. Oddly enough, these two aspects of the film are so intimately intertwined that it's difficult to separate them at all. What we've got left... read more is a very audacious, genuinely unsettling film that you won't be forgetting anytime soon.

    Ryo Ishibashi portrays Shigeharu Aoyama, a widower who along with his son (Tetsu Sawaki) is trying to cope with the loss of his beloved wife. His son decides to one day encourage him to go back on the market, so to speak, and through some wily trickery orchestrated by his friend and film producer, Yasuhisa Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), a fake audition is held to find a prospective wife for Aoyama. He finds what is to him the perfect girl in Asami Yamazaki, a timid but beautiful young woman. However, there's something unmistakably awry with Yamazaki, accentuated by Yoshikawa's inability to find any information related to her personal life; but as the idiom says, love is blind, and Aoyama finds that not everything is as it seems.

    Possibly the best aspect of Audition is how absolutely unpredictable it is. Despite what we already know from the get-go about Yamazaki's dubious nature, it's impossible to discern what comes next. A tremendous amount of effort has been put into making the characters believable and understandable. What Aoyama means to do with his audition isn't exactly morally sound, but you feel for him, for his sadness. He's had some difficult twists in his life and he shows kindness in his character rather than pure lust and desire. Meanwhile, although Yamazaki is irredeemably suspicious, her vulnerability makes her far harder to diagnose than at first glance.

    When these two characters clash, a romance is born that feels natural. They feed off their hardships, relate and appreciate each other on a more profound level than with most other movie couples. It's rather tragic that the viewer is more aware of a figurative guillotine hanging over the serenity but Takashi Miike (the film's director) both maintains the illusion and the reality the characters choose to live in. This is made even more apparent later on when the lines are blurred between these two states of mind, culminating in some rather disquieting realizations. Much applaud should go to the writer of the original novel, Ryu Murakami, whose adeptness at writing shines through in the film. Likewise, the screenwriter Daisuke Tengan deserves props for translating the novel so fluently to the TV screen.

    As mentioned earlier, this film is more an amalgam of two genres, and neither side suffers as a result. The movie starts off not much unlike any other romantic, happy-go-lucky tale. This is interspersed, however, with some truly challenging scenes, some of which are cringe-inducing. What's truly amazing about these difficult parts is that they neither feel forced or gratuitous. In fact, they feel more like a logical progression to what preceded it. Maybe that's where the true horror lies, in that we can both perceive such beauty and happiness while watching what lies bubbling underneath, and what eventually geysers up in one of the more surprising endings in film history.

    Stylistically, Audition does really well. The traditional daily life of the characters is usually represented in a cold blue, with little in the way of diversity. In the more romantically driven scenes, however, things change. Orange and red become more prominent, almost like a sign-post pointing to more complex and subdued emotions. This wouldn't be worthy of mention if these colors weren't later used to completely throw you off kilter. What was once welcoming becomes almost unbearable, the warm becomes the sickly. It's always worthwhile to point out when a cinematographer knows how to utilize the settings to not only appease the eye but tell a more primitive and visual story, one that accompanies the narrative in a way that is not obtrusive.

    The defining feature of Audition is its insistence on making you care. It may seem overemphasized but what many contemporary horror movies forget is that the characters have to be set up convincingly before we care about their fates. Miike's fantastic film spends most of its time doing just that, making us first and foremost want to see Aoyama succeed in his life and endeavors. Just that solidarity is a reason to check out Audition, but add to that the deft handling of two entirely conflicting genres so that you don't even notice the distinction makes it a must-see. Beware though that it's not for the weak of heart, but that should be common knowledge when looking at Mikee's track record.
  • paulkoh110
    December 29, 2011
    paulkoh110
    Its not that great UNTIL the last 20-30 minutes. THEN, it gets artsy and painful. This isn't as extreme as others claim it to be, its just a simple concept that goes into the Absurd towards the end. Overall, a dry film that attempts to keep our attention and actually gets you at ... read morethe last minute.
  • lewiskendell
    November 23, 2011
    lewiskendell
    "Words create lies. Pain can be trusted."

    This is a great example of slow-burn horror done right, and with a very bloody payoff.. Audition begins as somewhat unsettling and ends up excruciating to watch, and I mean that in the best way possible. What starts out as a somewhat mis... read moreguided attempt by a middle-aged father to find a new wife several years after his has passed away, turns into something horrifying and more than a little sad. Bring a strong stomach and some patience to Auditon, and you won't be disappointed.
  • axadntpron
    November 10, 2011
    axadntpron
    "All Japanese People Are Lonely"

    What an odd and certainly aggressive exploration of grief. As a man recently looses his wife, he uses the ruse of a TV show audition, to search for a probable replacement. Fitting his ideals, a young woman by the name of Asami waltzes into his li... read morefe. What happens next, is best left undiscussed. It needs to be experienced.
    One thing that is particularly striking about the film is that Shigeharu is not a bad man. He is grieving the lose of his beloved wife and doesn't know the proper way to get over it. Even as Miike shows the auditioning process, which is about as flattering to these women as a cattle auction, the viewer still feels empathy for Shigeharu.
    However, Miike does emphasize the point that what Shigeharu is looking for is obedience. In fact, all of the successful relationships in his life, are due to subservience. I think Miike creates a great portrait of a paternalistic society in which the women must quietly wait for the men's beck and call. The image of Asami waiting by the telephone is one that won't easily leave your brain. Unfortunately for the viewer, that isn't the only image that is hard to shake.
    The abrupt shift in the power dynamic will render you unable to stop from shifting in your seat. My best advice would be to grab a paper bag and enjoy the ride.
  • blkbomb
    August 21, 2011
    blkbomb
    Asami Yamazaki: Words create lies. Pain can be trusted. 

    "She always gets a part"

    What an experience Takashi Miike's Ôdishon is. It's a masterpiece that creates an immense amount of tension in it's first hour and a half, which leads up to an incredibly well done final act. This... read more is the first Miike film I have had the pleasure to watch and it definitely won't be my last. Everyone talks about the ending, which is understandable; but what I loved about this movie was the lead-up to the ending. We know that Asami isn't what she seems. We hear about murders and we see an obvious red flag in her apartment pretty early on. Aoyama, however, has no idea of this. He sees the nice, sweet, shy exterior of the girl. 

    From what I had been told by other people, I thought this was going to be a really violent and gruesome movie. It's nowhere near as violent as I expected it to be and only becomes so in it's final act. This scene is terrifying and obviously gruesome, but there's been much worse put to film. I think everyone's lasting impression of the movie is that last scene, so when asked about it they say how violent and brutal it is without remembering that about an hour and a half isn't violent at all. This is a testament to just how memorable and well done that scene is, though. It's definitely not something you'll forget anytime soon.

    If your a horror fan, you owe it to yourself go watch Audition. It's the most terrifying type of horror film when you think about it. Unlike Freddy Krueger and Jason, this kind of stuff can and does happen. It's realistic and that's the scariest thing about it. It's disturbing in a way that most movies aren't. Most are disturbing because of the extent the writers and directors will go to shock it's audience. Audition is disturbing because it's ability to shock the audience because of the reality of the situation it shows us. I'll say it again; A Masterpiece.
  • helpahorse
    May 22, 2011
    helpahorse
    So freakin slow, man. Then at the end I was like what the fuck is going on right now? It really wasn't that gory/scary bad at the end. I was completely unphased, and I will most likely not have any recollection of it tomorrow.

    Forgettable movie. Can't say that guy wasn't aski... read moreng for it.
  • jennifxu
    May 1, 2011
    jennifxu
    Why is this movie so disturbing, and more importantly, why is it so freaking long? Sadism has never been so boring.
  • ariuza1
    January 26, 2011
    ariuza1
    Based on a novel by Ryu Murakami, director Takashi Miike's Audition is surprisingly "deliberate" and straightforward for much of its length. It's not a bad film at all, but most of it is in the realm of realist drama, even becoming something of a romance at one point. There are a... read more few brutal images and scenarios, but they arrive primarily towards the end of the film, and they tend to be more conceptually disturbing than graphically violent.

    Audition is the story of Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), who is living alone with his son, Shigehiko (Tetsu Sawaki), after his wife, Ryoko (Miyuki Matsuda), passes away. First egged on by Shigehiko, Shigeharu decides to remarry. He enlists the help of a movie producer friend, Yasuhisha Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), who devises a scheme well known to pornographers--he sets up bogus auditions for a film.

    Yasuhisha acquires a large number of resumes and headshots for this purpose, out of which he asks Shigehiko to choose 30 women to audition. Before the audition day even arrives, Shigehiko has his eyes set on one particular woman, Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina). Asami strikes Yasuhisha as peculiar, but Shigehiko has fallen for her and a romance begins. However, Yasuhisha turns out to be right--there is something strange about her, as the audience can clearly see due to the fine performance from Shiina. Audition explores Asami's story and her relationship to Shigehiko.

    It's a good hour, at least, before anything very out of the ordinary happens in the film, and even when that time does arrive, the strange occurrences are extremely subtle at first. The pacing and tone of this first half of the film is more similar to Hideo Nakata's style as displayed in films like Ringu (1998) and Dark Water (Honogurai mizu no soko kara, 2002). This is only the third Miike film I've seen so far (I had difficulty tracking them down for purchase or rental before I joined Netflix), and the directorial style of Audition was surprising to me. That's because so far, every Miike film I've seen has a completely different style (the other two I've watched to date are Ichi the Killer (Koroshiya 1) and Happiness of the Katakuris (Katakuri-ke no kôfuku), both from 2001).

    But as a realist drama that ventures into romance and slight mystery/thriller territory during its first half, Audition is a fine piece of art--you just have to know what to expect. All of Miike's films that I've seen so far--as different as they are stylistically--share excellent direction. Miike is extremely adept at handling his cast, he knows how to get incredible cinematography, and he has interestingly varied ways of blocking scenes. Audition has a combination of a voyeur and a psychologically dissociative theme in its cinematography, appropriate to the plot. We view quite a few scenes from a distance--the camera is sometimes even placed in a room adjacent to the main action; there is a great hand-held tracking shot following Shigeharu and Yasuhisha through their office from behind partitions ala James Whale's Frankenstein (1931); an important "repeated scene" in a restaurant that gives us another psychological angle, with significantly altered dialogue, is shot at a distance; in the dénouement, another repeated dialogue scene with shifted meaning is shot from another room, and so on.

    Of course, the main attraction for most folks, at least in my part of the world, is the more mysterious and visceral material that enters in the second half, as the majority of Miike fans tend to be horror fans. For awhile, Miike, Murakami and scriptwriter Daisuke Tengan (whom Miike amusingly says must have "been on drugs" when he wrote Audition, because the script was so weird--he implies that he tried to "normalize" it a bit) play with audience expectations as Audition threatens to become a more standard relationship thriller, then a ghost story, then a rubber reality film (all of these things are implied in turn during one of the best extended sequences of the film), and finally, we realize that it's more about a psychotic villain. This final revelation leads to the infamous climactic scenes of the film, which will test some audience members' constitutions as we venture into more grisly territory accompanied by marvelous hallucinatory sequences. The performances in this section are worthy of a 10, even if, as Miike says in his commentary, Shiina, at least, seemed to almost stop performing and simply became the character--a frightening thought, particularly for Ishibashi.

    There are a number of subtexts that one can read into Audition, although Miike characteristically (for Asian genre cinema) stresses an intention of ambiguity. Many read the film as kind of a twisted feminist empowerment fantasy. After all, even if Shigeharu did not have the womanizing history and ill intentions for the audition that some characters believe him to have had, those beliefs are in line with at least a cynical misogynistic account of the typical motivations. Shigehiko's "girlfriend", who makes a brief appearance, is presented as a counterexample to be surmounted on this reading, as she is a traditional token of a more yielding female. Shigeharu's coworker who says she is going to get married is presented as a more implicitly "abused" counterexample.

    I say this be "abused" reasons "Close the bag mother fuckers". And i hope you liked my review.
  • animegirlaya
    December 13, 2010
    animegirlaya
    Hmm what is the big hype on this movie? I admit it is very well made and well acted and all that but I simply just hated it. I think I liked it years ago but today nothing. Anything think it is cool to stick a needle throw a guy's thong??

    A lonely Japanese widower whose son i... read mores planning to move out of the house soon expresses his sadness to a friend and fellow film producer, who becomes inspired to hold an audition for a non-existent film so that the widower can select a new potential bride from the resulting audition pool. The widower ultimately becomes enamoured with and fascinated by one particular young woman...but first impressions can often be horribly wrong.

    I think lots liked it but I just didn't.

    30% for story: I really just didn't like it. It's nothing really but torture porn

    30% for acting: Didn't think it was that great but Eihi Shiina was excellent.

    80% for special effects: There very well made yes, I think the needle scene was very disturbing.

    40% for characters.

    40 % for everything else: Some things are great other times...

    Hmm its up to you if you want to watch.

    Keiko's score 39-100

View All Audition (Ôdishon) Reviews

Critic Reviews

Jim Sullivan
November 30, 2001
Jim Sullivan, Boston Globe

This movie, at just under two hours, is a long crawl from inception to climax.

Patrick Z. McGavin
November 29, 2001
Patrick Z. McGavin, Chicago Tribune

Miike is brilliant at transforming the mundane and familiar ... into something sinister and eerie. Full Review

Kevin Thomas
November 16, 2001
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

A diabolically adroit piece of filmmaking that goes even further than the films of Italy's excruciatingly macabre Dario Argento. Full Review

Steven Rea
November 1, 2001
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

This brazen shocker is never less than compelling -- even when you feel compelled to shut your eyes.

Louis B. Parks
October 19, 2001
Louis B. Parks, Houston Chronicle

There will be many people who consider Audition an atrocity, and a few who find it a stimulating cinema experience. Full Review

Chris Vognar
October 18, 2001
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News

The shock imperative takes on a life of its own and floats away from the lengthy setup. Full Review

Bob Graham
September 14, 2001
Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle

It turns into a hallucinatory nightmare of female revenge that will pin back the audience's eyelids. Full Review

Glenn Lovell
September 14, 2001
Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News

Mesmerizing? You bet. Thought-provoking? Certainly. Comforting? Sure. Like a swan dive into a pool of spikes and razor wire. Full Review

David Edelstein
August 21, 2001
David Edelstein, Slate

A graphic lesson in what happens when you treat women as objects, even objects of reverence. Full Review

Elvis Mitchell
August 8, 2001
Elvis Mitchell, New York Times

A great, sick rush with a kicker on the level of The Vanishing. Full Review

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