A man who lives with his son is lonely after his wife died. A friend of his suggests holding an audition where he picks out women he may be interested in spending the rest of his life with. The women think they are fighting for a role in a movie, so this isn’t nice of him at all! But karma comes to visit him, and her name is kiri kiri kiri!
I’ve seen Audition twice, and both times I’ve found the movie boring. Audition is still boring until the last 20 minutes. Then Takashi Miike shows what an artist, he is. It feels like Takashi Miike has drawn a lot of inspiration from David Lynch with dream sequences that make an impression.
There is a lot of dialogue, and I don’t find the dialogue interesting. The protagonist falls in love with the creepy Asami, while a friend of his is more skeptical and feels there’s something strange about her. There are many silent scenes with these two, and I never felt that the dialogue between these two was interesting.
Eventually, the protagonist finds out that Asami had a bad childhood with an uncle from hell. He’s very surprised that she hasn’t been damaged by her tough childhood, but he’s so wrong!
What I miss in Audition is more tension. The movie isn’t scary, and it’s not that gory either. I laughed hard at the end when Asami shows her real and dark side. Asami can remind me of a female version of Kakihara from Ichi the Killer. Kakihara is one of my favorite characters in the movie world, so I enjoyed myself when Asami shows her real side of herself. I love her body language when she’s enjoying herself. Kiri kiri kiri!
Asami is one hell of a crazy lady, and I fell for her. Give me Kakihara and Asami in the same movie, then we have the duo from hell! Audition is a movie that is more fun than unpleasant. It’s a movie that should have been trimmed down by 30 minutes, because there isn’t enough content here to defend a runtime of almost two hours. But I love the last 20 minutes, then finally Takashi Miike shows his true face which I love!
