Audition

Horror, Thriller, Mystery
Asia  /  English Sub

Audition tells a story of a middle-aged, widowed TV company executive Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi). It's been seven long years after the death of his beloved wife Ryoko, leaving the widower with only a few people in his world. One of them is Rie (Toshie Negishi), the housekeeper. The other is his son Shigehiko (Tetsu Sawaki). Aoyama, now a bachelor with a terminal illness, finally makes a decision to shake off the ghost of his deceased wife and move on with his life. Shigeharu asks his only friend, and business partner, Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura) for help and he comes up with a brilliant plan - a fake audition for a non-existing movie, designed to lure pretty young actresses onto the casting couch. Shigeharu, however, is looking for something different - love in a heartless, cruel society, where he has no other choice. And he finds it, hopelessly falling in love with a former ballerina named Asami (Eihi Shiina), simply after reading her resume. She wins the starring role of a lifetime. The movie holds Miike's trademark of being both fascinating and disgusting. After a deceptively melodramatic first hour, it develops into a horrific endurance test of viewer's nerves and a bloody massacre.