Audition (1999)
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Audition Movie Review
Audition is a 1999 Japanese horror film directed by Takashi Miike and starring Ryo Ishibashi and Eihi Shiina. It’s a very overrated genre film.
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“Only pain and suffering will make you realize who you are“
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A widower accepts his friend’s offer to audition girls in order to search for his new wife. However, the girl he likes does not appear to be the one she claims to be. Regarded as one of the best horror movies of all time, Audition to me felt overrated and only serviceable. I usually don’t gravitate toward Japanese horror as a whole, but this even failed to make the case for itself as to why it is a masterpiece.
A lot has been said about this movie’s content and themes, but most of it is honestly a lot of bullshit. The movie isn’t feminist nor is it misogynistic. It has no purpose and/or discernible themes. It’s just your standard serial killer narrative that features a horrible human being whom I could not relate to or sympathize in the slightest.
Whenever these modern movies try to make you care for the most vile, despicable people just because they’d had terrible childhoods, I want to vomit. This movie, thus, represents everything that is wrong with today’s societies making excuses for the worst among us.
But Audition’s worst aspect is the violence. That third act is so atrocious and horrendous that it was pure torture porn and nothing more than that. Why would anybody sane want to watch a film where the villain carefully and sadistically tortures the protagonist and slices his body parts one by one? A movie making you skip a scene as you cannot bear to watch it is never a good thing.
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Ishibashi is pretty good in the main role and Shiina is very believable as this horrible psychopath, but their characters still felt underdeveloped despite a significant amount of time devoted to their arcs. The flashbacks were also shocking, but not as shocking as that ending, so it failed to make me empathize with the killer. The movie is well shot, directed and acted. I also appreciated how it disguised itself as a melodrama first before becoming a full-on horror. But the violence permitted me from enjoying it more.
Audition is a Japanese horror movie that cleverly disguises itself as a melodrama in the first half before becoming shocking and disgusting in its brutal ending. The violence here was repulsive and irredeemable and the movie trying to somewhat empathize with the killer was also not great. It’s very well made for sure, but it is pretty much just torture porn with nothing to elevate it beyond that sleazy factor.
My Rating – 3
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