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Just perfect...

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Blistering performances.

I always have a hard time rating shocking films. As a concept they often disgust me but at the same time I can appreciate this kind of tales based on the darkest side of humanity rather than ghosts and fantasies. They´re far more interesting alright but, are they really that good? I´m talking about Funny Games or Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. I find Audition to be a lot less shocking than those two, but it has a sub-plot on child abuse that makes it a lot richer. It´s more subtle and nuanced too, and tries to find beauty in all of this, even some twisted romance.At times it seems this kind of films rely entirely on their shock factor but I think it´s a mistake to base my opinion on it. That would be, for instance, like rating a thriller on a plot twist alone. What about all the rest? Audition stretches the mistery for about an hour and seems to have run out of time when it finally wants to unravel it. A rushed dream sequence is supposed to get it all out of the way quickly. That first hour is supposed to be tenseful since we suspect something is wrong and yet, when it finally does, it seems to come out of nowhere, unresolved. On top of that I don´t find the torture, which apparently is the most important part, to be any more memorable than the one on Marathon Man. Certainly not enough to glorify this tale as an all-time classic. If I had time to get a bit into the mind of the girl maybe the "deeper, deeper" would mean more than just "I´m gonna do this now, if that´s ok".In conclusion, I find myself in the middle ground. It isn´t either that good or that bad. It´s a fine example of that asian horror new-wave, with enough elements to become a cult film but too vague to really leave a mark.

This is "the goriest movie ever?" Wow. Hardly.So I've been told, anyways. Sure, it came out 17 years ago, this is my first/only viewing, I've seen so much gore in my life (movies in movies, that is) and yet, this is practically Rated PG. Well, after watching two straight nights of Asian carnage cinema: Ichi the Killer (★★★★★/10 Stars) and Dream Home (★★★★★★★★★/10 Stars,) I was recommended Audition to fall into that category and from what I was told, I agreed. Never saw it, always meant to and this would be a great trilogy in as many days to finish off with.So, with these expectations, I relished in the first 20-30 minutes that seemed so normal, so cute and so good. I saw it as a lighthearted, romantic comedy/drama that was a little refreshing from the previous two movies I watched recently. But, boy did I smile. I was waiting patiently for the big bomb to hit, the huge scare that would make me jump since it was "supposed to" get extremely violent/bloody soon.40 total minutes had passed. Then, 60. 80. And at about 100 minutes, we're still in the same sweet, built-on-a-lie love-lost story. Sure, there were hints throughout this isn't what it seems. In fact, they flat out and verbally tell you that. So, I knew I was watching the right movie, but I began to question the whole "goriest movie ever!" statement/reviews I've heard during the almost two decades since its debut.Sure enough, the last 20 or so minutes, it gets somewhat gruesome. Nothing for me to look away from the screen, which I did a ton in 2001's Ichi the Killer. (Yeah, yeah, I can only take so much. Anything to do with teeth or eyeballs are off-limits for my own eyeballs.) Not a second did I say to myself: "Well, this is from 2000, maybe it was considered gory back then " Nope. I've seen plenty that had 10x the gore and all-throughout the movie – not just in the last act. That all said, the movie I saw (minus the exploitative 20 or so last minutes) was so cute, charming, well-acted and shot, it's overall recommended. Plus, the final third of the movie isn't bad on its own. It just certainly doesn't live up to the hype. ***Final thoughts: The bridge movie in my "trilogy of terror" is the best: Dream Home and the only Asian one shot outside of Japan. If you like Asian dark humor, suspense, blood and guts, that's the Home to move into.

Seven years after the death of his wife, Shigeharu Aoyama (an excellent performance from Ryo Ishibashi) is urged by his son Shigehiko (Tetsu Sawaki) to start dating other women. After the tragedy of his wife's death, the film then becomes almost a light comedy, as the two of them (and the dog, Gangu!) attempt to match-make the clearly floundering Shigeharu. After seeing a parade of women as part of an 'audition' to be his next wife, the stunning, demure (and a very young looking 24 years of age) Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina), dressed entirely in white, utterly beguiles him, and it seems as if the feeling is mutual.Shigeharu is a well-meaning, otherwise contented man with a genuinely warm-hearted family. Asami was a ballet dancer but damaged her hip, and yet otherwise seems very enigmatic; she lives alone in a flat with a phone and a curiously omnipresent sack … that moves. Shigeharu's investigations lead to a morass of deepening mystery regarding all who knew Asami – at the dance studio she claimed to frequent is a man with prosthetic feet, the owner of a bar where she used to work was murdered (his recovered body was recovered alongside extra fingers, tongue and an ear, which fuels Shigeharu's nightmares).The contrast between the increasingly bizarre snapshots of Asami's life and the pleasant mundanity that is Shigeharu's life give a deliberately disjointed sense to the film: truly, we do not know where (if anywhere) the narrative is going, and what is going to happen next. Which is probably just as well.Asami's sack contains a dog-like creature missing the body parts found by the police following the death of the bar owner; she sits alone and silent awaiting his every phone call. Perverse and abusive flashbacks that may be dreams show the girl tortured and abused. When one day he doesn't call, her anger takes on excruciating levels.In a finale that will stick in the mind of anyone who has seen 'Audition', Shigeharu is drugged and falls to the floor of his living room, unable to move. Gangu is killed, and the warmth of the Aoyama family home is corrupted as Asami emerges, dressed in long leather gloves and apron, carrying an array of needles and torture implements.Very slowly and methodically, she inserts needles into his eyes and begins to cut off one foot, before moving onto the other. The delicacy and deliberation with which she carries out these paralysing punishments are filmed in meticulous detail and the results are painful even to watch. He is paying the price for not devoting himself entirely to her, as others have done in the past ('All words are lies, pain doesn't lie').The film has been heralded for inciting the 'torture porn' style of projects like 'Saw (2004)' and 'Hostel (2005)', and yet remains more effective than any of them for not giving any clue or indication as the depths of the depravity unleashed toward the close. Truly shocking, hauntingly beautiful and not easily forgotten.

AUDITION is a film I knew little about before watching - modern Japanese cinema is something I'm not very knowledgeable about and Japanese "horror" films even less so. I had heard about AUDITION being extremely dark, brutal and disturbing with some amazing twists during its cinema run, so out of curiosity I had to rent it. What I got was a mixed movie, sometimes gripping but definitely not one I would call "entertaining" to watch. For the first hour and twenty minutes, it's a slow-paced tale of romance with some mystery aspects which keeps you watching through some interesting, subdued direction from Takashi Miike. This gives the film its realistic edge, and it also incorporates some strong acting on the parts of the two leads; Ryo Ishibashi creates a portrait of a sad, lonely middle-aged man so that you have a ton of sympathy for his character and can relate to his desperation. In comparison, Eihi Shiina's almost unearthly look - there is something very fragile and beautiful about her - sits well with her mysterious and unexplained character whom nobody else in the film seems to know much about. Shiina is excellent in the role and deserves to go on to a big career in Japan.For the first hour and twenty minutes - normally the running time for a "normal" Western film - there isn't much horror here to tell about, other than a few flashy disturbing images of a severed tongue slapping on the floor, a man getting his head slowly and deliberately sliced off, and a great shock sequence involving a moving bag. Then, at around that eighty minute mark, the film begins to change and become colder and disturbing. Dreams are mixed with reality to create a visually confusing film and Miike delights in tormenting the viewer with a hideous image of a man in a sack with no feet and few fingers. You begin to wonder what the hell is going on, and then the films ends ambiguously making you wonder whether what you just watched really happened or not.Before that ending comes one of the strongest - in terms of physical torture - segments of a film that I've yet to see, which is tough to sit through. Basically it's a scene of a paralysed Ishibashi being slowly and deliberately tortured by Shiina, who delights in getting as much pain as possible from her victim. First via the use of strategically-inserted needles, and then in the film's most stomach-churning moment, she actually saws his foot off - in graphic detail. This is far stronger and darker stuff than many of the shoddy and amusing video nasties that were prosecuted in the early '80s, yet is released uncut today in Britain - it shows how much our society has changed. The realism of this sequence makes it pretty nauseous and you can't help but be grateful when it's all over. So did it really happen? I don't know, and I don't plan on watching this film again anytime soon to find out. It's very interesting stuff and highly disturbing, as well as being well-made, but an entertaining movie it is not.