is a 1999 Japanese horror film directed by Takashi Miike and written by Daisuke Tengan, who adapted it from Ryu Murakami's 1997 novel of the same name. It follows a middle-aged widower (Ryo Ishibashi) who enlists the help of his film producer friend (Jun Kunimura) to stage fake auditions in order to meet a new girlfriend, only to find that the young woman he chooses (Eihi Shiina) has a dark past.
The film was originally a project of the Japanese company Omega Project, who wanted to make another horror film after the financial success of Ring (1998). The company purchased the rights to Murakami's book and sought Miike and Tengan for an adaptation. The cast and crew consisted primarily of previous Miike collaborators, with the exception of Shiina, who had worked as a model prior to making her acting debut in Audition. The film was shot in Tokyo over a three-week period.
Audition premiered with a few other Japanese horror films at the Vancouver International Film Festival, but received increased attention when screened at the 2000 Rotterdam International Film Festival, where it received the FIPRESCI Prize and the KNF Award. Following a theatrical release in Japan, the film continued to play at festivals and had theatrical releases in the United States and United Kingdom, followed by several home media releases. It grossed $131,296 at the U.S. box office.
The film was received positively by Western film critics, with many singling out the intense climactic scene and commenting on its stark contrast to the scenes that preceded it. The film has appeared on several lists of the best horror films ever made and has had an influence on other horror directors, including Eli Roth and the Soska sisters.
Plot Shigeharu Aoyama's wife Ryoko dies from an undisclosed illness. Seven years later, Shigeharu's teenage son Shigehiko encourages him to remarry. Shigeharu's friend, film producer Yasuhisa Yoshikawa, organizes a fake casting call, at which young women ostensibly audition for the starring role in a new television series. Posing as a casting director so he can meet the aspiring actress, Shigeharu is immediately enchanted by an applicant named Asami Yamazaki, a former ballerina who claims her dancing career ended due to injuries.
Yasuhisa is suspicious when he cannot reach any of the references in Asami's résumé, including a music producer who went missing 18 months earlier, but Shigeharu continues to pursue her regardless. In her very small apartment, which contains little more than a large sack and a telephone, Asami sits perfectly still next to the phone for four days after the audition. When it finally rings, she answers, pretending she never expected Shigeharu to call. After several dates, she accompanies Shigeharu to a love hotel, where he intends to propose marriage. She reveals burn scars across her body and, before having sex, demands that he pledge his love to her. Deeply moved, he complies. The following morning, Shigeharu receives a call from the front desk to inform him that Asami has left.
Shigeharu tries to find Asami, but all of the contacts on her résumé are dead ends, as Yasuhisa warned. At the dance studio where Asami trained, Shigeharu finds her former instructor, who tortured Asami by burning her legs when she was a child and now has prosthetic feet. Shigeharu then goes to the bar where Asami claims to have worked, where he learns from a local man that the bar has been closed for a year following the murder and dismemberment of the owner, and that the police found an extra tongue, an extra ear, and three extra fingers upon recovering the body.
Asami sneaks into Shigeharu's house while he is at work and becomes jealous upon seeing a framed picture of Ryoko. She drugs his liquor and kills Gangu, the family dog. Shigeharu returns, drinks the liquor, collapses, and experiences flashbacks to previous dates with Asami and sexual experiences with other women from his past. In Asami's apartment, a man who is missing both feet, his tongue, an ear, and three fingers crawls out of the sack and begs for food. Asami vomits into a dog bowl, which the man hungrily consumes. Asami then uses a garrote wire to decapitate her dance instructor.
Shigeharu passes out. Once he awakens, Asami informs him that she has injected him with a paralytic agent that disables his muscles but leaves him conscious and able to feel. As she begins to insert acupuncture needles into him, she explains that he has failed to love only her. She cuts off his left foot with a wire saw, and begins to do the same to his right foot until Shigehiko returns home from school; Asami attacks him. Shigeharu suddenly reawakens in the hotel, where he proposes marriage to Asami, who accepts. He falls back asleep and returns to reality to find Shigehiko fighting Asami. Shigehiko overpowers Asami and kicks her down the stairs, breaking her neck. Shigeharu instructs Shigehiko to call the police and stares across the room at the dying Asami, who repeats something she said on one of their dates about being excited to see him again.
Cast Ryo Ishibashi as Eihi Shiina as Jun Kunimura as , a film producer and Shigeharu's friend Tetsu Sawaki as , Shigeharu's teenage son Miyuki Matsuda as , Shigeharu's late wife Toshie Negishi as Shigeru Saiki as Ken Mitsuishi as Ren Osugi as Renji Ishibashi as
Themes Critics have considered Audition as both feminist and misogynistic. Miike has stated that when he met journalists in the United Kingdom and France, he found they commented on the film's feminist themes when Asami gets revenge on the men in her life. The film sets up Aoyama with traits and behaviors which could be considered sexist: a list of criteria for his bride to meet, and the phony audition format he uses to search for a future wife. Tom Mes, author of Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike, stated that the torture sequence, with the mutilation of Aoyama, can be seen as revenge from Asami. Dennis Lim of the Los Angeles Times examined similar themes, noting that the film is "ultimately about the male fear of women and female sexuality" and that women are blatantly objectified in the first half of the film, only to have Asami "redress this imbalance" in the second half when she becomes an "avenging angel".
Chris Pizzello, writing in the American Cinematographer, stated that one plausible approach to interpreting the film is to see the final act as a representation of Aoyama's guilt at his mistreatment of women and his desire to dominate them. Aoyama develops a paranoid fantasy of an attacking object: because he harbours sadistic thoughts towards women, he develops a fear that the object will retaliate. Contrary to this, Miike has stated that the final torture scenes in the film are not a paranoid nightmare dreamed up by Aoyama. Tom Mes has argued against the feminist portrayal of the film, noting that Asami is not motivated by an ideological agenda, and that acknowledging that she takes revenge on a man who has lied to her would be ignoring that she has also lied to Aoyama. Asami states "I want to tell you everything" during the torture scene, implying she had not been truthful before. Mes also notes that the avenging angel theme contradicts a feminist-themed revenge interpretation, given that one of Asami's victims is female.
In Audition, the character of Asami is a victim of child abuse. Colette Balmain, in her book Introduction to Japanese Horror Film, described Asami as "just one more face of the wronged women in Japanese culture... They are victims of repression and oppression, and only death and loneliness remain for them". The film critic Robin Wood wrote that through her child abuse, Asami is taught that love and pain must be inseparable. The audience is led to identify with Asami through this victimization and also what Stephen LeDrew described as a "patriarchal Japanese society".
Elvis Mitchell (The New York Times) stated that the theme of the film was: "the objectification of women in Japanese society and the mirror-image horror of retribution it could create". Tom Mes suggested that these themes can be witnessed in the scene where Asami feeds her mutilated prisoner and then turns into the childhood version of herself and pets him like a dog. Mes concludes that this is done to suggest that what had happened in Asami's life had made her the violent adult seen in the film.
Production Development
The main production company behind Audition was the Japanese company Omega Project. Omega were originally behind the production of Hideo Nakata's film Ring; this was a great success in Japan and, subsequently, the rest of Asia. Omega had problems setting up the release of Ring in Korea and had the company AFDF Korea work on a Korean re-adaptation of Ring. The following year, in 1998, Omega partnered again with AFDF Korea and other production companies, including Creators Company Connection, Film Face, and Bodysonic to make the adaptation of Ryū Murakami's 1997 novel Audition. Omega wanted to create a film different from the supernatural-themed Ring, and chose to adapt Murakami's novel, which lacked this trait. To attempt something different, they hired a screenwriter (Daisuke Tengan) and a director (Takashi Miike) who were not known for working on horror films. Prior to Audition, Tengan was best known as a screenwriter for working with his father (Shohei Imamura) on The Eel, which won the Palme d'Or in 1997.
Pre-production To create Audition, Miike worked with many of his previous collaborators, such as cinematographer Hideo Yamamoto. Miike spoke of his cinematographer by saying that Yamamoto was: "very sensitive towards death. Both of his parents died very young, and it's not something he talks about much". Miike also noted that he felt that Yamamoto was: "living in fear, and that sensibility comes through in his work. It's something I want to make the most of". The film's score was composed by Kōji Endō. Endō had previously composed work for Miike on films such as The Bird People in China. Yasushi Shimamura was the film's editor. Shimamura had worked with Miike as early as Lady Hunter: Prelude To Murder in 1991.
Actor Ryo Ishibashi wanted to work with Miike and agreed to the role. He commented that despite not being a great fan of horror films, he enjoyed scripts such as that of Audition, that showcased human nature. Model Eihi Shiina was cast in the film as Asami. Shiina's career was primarily as a model and she only began acting after being offered a film role while she was on holidays.
Shiina first learned about Miike through his film Blues Harp, which made her interested in meeting the director. When Shiina first met Miike, they began talking about her opinions on love and relationships. On their second meeting, Miike asked Shiina to play the part of Asami. Shiina thought that the opinions and feelings she expressed to Miike were the reason she was cast in the role, and she tried to play the role as naturally as she could without going over the top.
Production Audition was shot in approximately three weeks, which was about one more week than usual for Miike's films at the time. Scenes such as those in Asami's apartment and at a restaurant were shot on location in a real apartment and a real restaurant. Outdoor scenes were shot in Tokyo, along intersections in Omotesandō.