Audition, 1999

The film is a Japanese horror movie of director Takashi Miike, from the 1997 novelty of Ryu Murakami. The movie is about the widower, Mr. Shigeharu Aoyama, who staged the phony audition to saw the possible new romance partner. After the interview to some ladies, Aoyama became interested to Asami, whose dark past had affected their relationship.

Cast Lists

Plot

Shigeharu Aoyama was the widower whose son was Shigehiko that says that he must look for a new wife. Yasuhisa Yoshikawa is Shigeharu’s friend who is the movie producer, devises the mock casting audition in which the young ladies audition for this “part” of Shigeharu’s, the new wife. Shigeharu agreed to the arrangement and was enchanted immediately by Asami Yamazaki, who is attracted to her obvious emotional depth.

Yasuhisa can’t reach any of those references in the résumé of Asami, like music producing she said she had worked for, who was missing. But, Shigeharu was so enthralled to her that he pursued her anyway. She stays in the empty apartment, with a phone and a sack. For 4 days after her audition, she sits ideally next to her phone waiting for the ring. When it at last did ring, she answered, pretending that she did not expect Shigeharu to call. For several days, she agreed to accompany him into the seaside hotel, wherein Shigeharu intended to propose to her. In a hotel, Asami revealed burn scars on the body. Before they make love, Asami demanded that Shigeharu pledge the love to her and also that no one else should pledge. Deeply moved, Shigeharu agreed. In the following morning, Asami was nowhere to found.

Shigeharu tried to track her down by her résumé, but then Yasuhisa warned, every contact were dead end. In a dance studio where she once that she was training, he saw the man with a prosthetic feet. This bar that she said she was working had been abandoned for one year already after the killing and dismemberments of the owner. The passerby told Shigeharu that the policeman found three more fingers, an extra tongue and an extra ear and when they found the body; Shigeharu had some hallucinations of the corpse pieces. In the mean time, Asami went to the house of Shigeharu and saw the picture of the late wife. Furious, she drugs the liquor. Shigeharu go home, poured a drink, and then after a short time, felt the effects of that drugs he take. A flashback showed that Asami’s sack in the apartment has the missing both feet of the man, an ear, a tongue, and the three fingers of one hand. He crawled out and begs for some food. Asami vomited into the dog dish and placed it over the floor for this man.

Writer’s Opinion

Audition is beautifully orchestrated and shot. It is both the subtle personal drama where it is considerd as one of the genuinely terrifying movies. The early stage of the movie resembled the work of Claude Sautet, only witness by the Japanese sensibility, about a relationship between a beautiful young lady and an old man.

The story slides to first a mystery, then the full blown horror tale, the power that comes from following the very simple rule: namely, make your audience care about its movie casts first. The film retains its impact also after an initial shock. This ambiguity sense is crucial to the movie claims to be a thing more than merely an unorthodox jab fest. ‘Audition’ constructed and then deconstructs. The certain vision of world and the “terrifying” scenes are part of this already. The result has been utterly beguiling, and then one can observe similarities with the ‘Audition’s’ portrayal of the man’s complicit connection with hell.

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