Audition

Rating:
Summary: Definitely not acupuncture....
Review: You must see this movie for yourself to believe the hype. It sneaks up on you and pays off in the end. For me, I can only watch this movie once, and I have since resold it, but the horrific images have stayed in my mind.

Definitely a creepy, sick movie. The eventual fate of the main character is almost too much to bear. To reveal any more would spoil this movie to the uninitiated. See this movie once, then get rid of it. It will haunt you for days afterward, and you'll wonder why you willingly watched such loathsome horror.

Rating:
Summary: Another experiment in hype
Review: Just as the main character falls victim to his beautiful and mysterious love interest, I fell victim to what's amounted to nothing more than a pile of hype. The premise and even the story are excellent, but the execution falls flat. The person who wrote the script apparently was fired half way through the movie, which then becomes an "art film," trying way too desperately to be clever and confusing.

Movies such as this try to make the viewer think that if they didn't like it, they didn't get it. I got it. It sucked anyway. If nothing else, I look at Audition as yet another case study in which viewers are told to think alike, and thus do. Just because a movie is non sequitur does not automatically make it interesting, innovative, brilliant, intelligent, ingenious, etc. The skill of Audition's marketers far exceeded that of the movie's producers, the unfortunate result being a sub-par film that could've/should've been a lot better being hailed as something more than it's worthy of.

The movie wins points for premise, plot, acting, and some profoundly disturbing gore, but Audition proves that none of these things matter in the absence of effective execution.

Rating:
Summary: Listen to No One...Ignorance is Bliss
Review: If you are reading this, you probably know Miike's work and this of no use to you. To those who happen to stumble on this review, DON'T look for reviews. DON'T look for plot synopsis. JUST WATCH. Take all the wonderful things of movies about finding love and horror, and watch it all come down. Miike knows this...and loves it. You know this...and that's why you watch.

Rating:
Summary: Bland
Review: I like Haruki Murakami(the original writer of this movie) and also the director Takashi Miike, but I couldnft find much esplendourf in the film.
Acting: The leading actress is creepy enough to act the torturer, but thatfs it; nothing more than that, nothing less than that. Although the leading actor Ryo Ishibashi is nice and Ren Osugi is outstanding as the creature in a filthy bag.
Plot: Haruki Murakami writes absurd, vivid and imaginal story. Thatfs why the entire story is like some sort of a dream(or nightmare?). To me, it was too prose. Ifd rather imagine scenes by reading the book than see them in a movie.
If you donft like to see someone torturing or being tortured in any way, avoid this one. Disgusting scenes are including.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't live up to the hype.
Review: I love horror movies, especially intelligent, subtle ones. I kept hearing about this movie from people who compared it to Ringu. After seeing it, I'm not sure how it earned that comparison.

I love the main concept of Audition, the story is a critique of sex roles in Japan. The film is very well made, from a technical standpoint. The sets and lighting start out very ordinary, and slowly get more extreme. Same goes with the camera work. So all the pieces of a really great movie are there.

But the ending is horrible. I have no problem with the violence, and there's a surprisingly small amount of gore considering the situation. But the film takes what should have been creepy and understated and shoves it in your face. It's as if the filmmaker was afraid that we're all too stupid to get his point. And although the movie's theme was made totally clear, the plot got sloppy. The story just dissolves into a mess of relatively dull hallucinations and flashbacks, occasionally punctuated by severe torture. I think that throwing together a bunch of dreamy scenes is a cop out ending. I guess some people see that kind of thing and call it art, but I'm not one of them.

So please, rent this before you buy it.

Rating:
Summary: Miike's best work
Review: This movie may be too slow for some but has a great payoff ending. The sounds in this movie alone are astounding. From the subtle music to the switching from drama too horror in the last act. I think many people coming from seeing Ichi the Killer and Dead or Alive might be dissapointed that Audition is not as frantic and much more reserved than those two movies. Some may be put off by the gorey torture scene in the end. If you are a fan of Japanese cinema or movies that stick with you long after you watched them, then I would highly reccomend Audition.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best films of recent years
Review: As is often remarked, it's best to know as little about this film as possible before seeing it. I'll just say that if you like such controversial works as Roman Polanski's Repulsion and David Lynch's Blue Velvet, you'll probably like Audition, which, in my humble opinion, ranks alongside those films as a classic of (very) uneasy suspense and borderline surrealism. Well worth owning on DVD, since it almost demands multiple viewings. In fact, I'm surprised that few of the reviews here have remarked on the tantalizing ambiguities and odd contradictions that pop up toward the end. A lot of you apparently aren't watching very carefully.

Rating:
Summary: STUDY THIS FILM
Review: First of all, this was my first introduction to Asian films, everything before whether it be Giallos (Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Opera, House with Windows that Laughed, What Ever Happened to Solange), or Film Noirs (The Third Man, Mildred Pierce, Memento), or 70's Exploitation (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Black Christmas) seemed to teach me a lot less about the visual effectiveness a director can have on a film and its audience. The closest experience I had had to this sort of thing beforehand was Requiem for a Dream, and even that didn't seem to get to me as much as this film. If you want to understand Film Aesthetics study asian movies, the more contemporary the better. There will always be those critics who say the Japanese revolutionizing film ended with Kurosawa, those people have not seen Audition. So if you want to study film or study film and become a filmmaker pick up an asian flick. Audition, Battle Royale, Ringu, The Eye, Dark Water, Chaos, Kairo, Kakashi. With the recent resurfacing of horror and original ideas coming out of Japan, China and Korea, even if you aren't paying attention to these places you should already have figured out by now that even Hollywood is catching on. Dreamworks remade Ringu into The Ring, Wes Craven has plans to remake Kairo (the story of a live webfeed which broadcasts dead people who are seen still alive) into Pulse (the English translation of the word), Tom Cruise's production company has bought the rights to remake The Eye (the story of a girl who can see the dead after she gets a cornea transplant), there are also plans to remake the Korean film Cure (about a killer who hypnotizes people into commiting murders for him). Audition is an example of one of those movies that, while brilliant aesthetically and story-wise, its just too dark to be make it as an American Film, as is Battle Royale (a high school class is transported to an island where they are given 3 days to kill each other until only one people remains, or they all die). There is a lot of art and money in this medium, The Ring was the third remake of Ringu, there was also a sequel, a prequel, two tv shows, three made for tv movies, the book series and the comic book series. But Audition stands alone, its too good for a sequel, too proud for a franchise, and (I'm sorry to say this) just too good to be an American movie.

Rating:
Summary: "You must see this!" are the only words good enough
Review: I just rented Audition a couple days ago, it's still here, and I will probably watch it at least 4 times by the time I have to return it. Then I plan on buying it when I get a DVD player.

Ordinarily I am not even that much into "thriller" or "horror" types of movies. Seen a bunch, didn't get much out of them. Thus it's not really my preferred genre. After seeing Audition it turns out that the only reason I'm not too into this genre is because none of the other examples are as nightmarishly believable as Audition. Eihi Shiina taps into the vein of evil like no one else I have ever seen.

If I were to sit here and try to think of my favorite movies I rented in 2002 I'd certainly end up forgetting lots of great ones until 5 minutes after I submit my review. Thus I won't do that. But I will indeed say that Audition is one of the most perfect movies I have ever seen.

I think the best way I can review and recommend this movie is to say nothing about it. I just don't want to give anything away. I want the viewer to go blindly into this movie, and then walk away afterwards with the feeling of curdled blood clogging their arteries.

My advice: Either go rent this, buy it, or rent it then buy it. Learn as few specifics about it as possible and just pop it into your VCR/DVD player and let it crawl inside you and linger in the regions of human consciousness that are best left dormant.

Now all I have to do is see the other movies by this director and see if Ms. Shiina has made any other movies.

Rating:
Summary: A.....AOWW!!!!!
Review: I didn't know what to think of his movie at first. It's always good to be exposed to some sort of cinema from outside the US, and this is no exception. It starts out as a general romantic drama, the sort I'd imagine Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan performing in.... and if they unexpectedly agree to an American version I'd be thoroughly surprised at the drastic turns taken by Meg. The sound effects in certain scenes are a little too effective. Piano wire, slashings, cut cut cut... I loved it and cringed at it and look forward to Takashi Miike's further work.