Few movies will make you happier to be married than Audition. I mean, wives may eat your souls, but they don’t cut off your feet with razor wire, amiright, fellas?
Seven years after the death of his wife, sad single dad Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi, War) is under pressure to remarry, but afraid he’ll be unable to find his true ideal in his middle age. He agrees to an odd ruse by which he’ll pretend to be auditioning women for a movie, so he can bombard them with a litany of questions, and then hone in on his favorite later.
That chosen one is 24-year-old former ballet dancer Asami (Eihi Shiina, Tokyo Gore Police). Abused as a child, the quiet, mild-mannered and plainly pretty woman barely can make eye contact; nonetheless, Aoyama is smitten. He’ll soon wish he weren’t, because this girl is a freak. And not in the bedroom way.
Audition is one of those movies that would be best to see going in completely cold, because Japanese maverick Takashi Miike lulls you into thinking his film will be about something else, only to slam you into something quite the opposite more than hour into it. Unfortunately, you can’t, because the freaking posters and DVD covers give the twist away; however, the pain is not as bad as you’ve been led to believe. In other words, it’s no Guinea Pig, and thank God.
Mind you, it’s still powerful and tough to forget. You’ll never eat a bowl of dog vomit again. —Rod Lott