Cast:
Eihi Shiina (Asami Yamazaki), Ryo Ishibashi (Shigeharu Aoyama), Jun Kunimura (Yasuhisa Yoshikawa), Tetsu Sawaki (Shigehiko Aoyama), Miyuki Matsuda (Ryoko Aoyama), Toshie Negishi (Rie), Shigeru Saiki (Toastmaster), Ken Mitsuishi (Director), Ren Ohsugi (Shimada), and Renji Ishibashi (Old man in wheelchair) Directed by Takashi Miike.
Review:
“The life of a movie director is a strange one. What one has done in the past determines the future. And I’m grateful to fans who enjoy my genre films. But I try to focus on the things that I like in the present. I like new ventures There could be disappointments for fans. I like to be diverse. And I’ll keep on being diverse in the future.”
Admittedly, there was no real debate about picking Takashi Miike or not when it came to looking for further faces of directorial vision. Born in the Yao in the Osaka Prefecture of Japan to a welder and a seamstress, Miike had a clear interest in film from a young age. He graduated from the Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film (as taught by Shohei Imamura) and worked in film crews before becoming a filmmaker in 1991, which started with a variety of television and direct-to-video work. His early work in features for audiences would be films such as Shinjuku Triad Society (1995), which he labeled as the first of a "Black Society trilogy" involving triads and the yakuza. Of course, Audition, which premiered on the festival circuit beginning in late 1999, became one of his more noted films abroad. His further films over the years have had their varying levels of attention. Ichi the Killer (2001) had a publicity gimmick handing out barf bags on the festival circuit with a resulting "controversy" about the gore, while his samurai film 13 Assassins (2010) was apparently a really well-regarded remake of the 1963 film of the same name, and he has continued with television from time to time such as Connect just two years ago. One particular influence that Miike inspired in his filmography of roughly 100 films was with Eli Roth, as Audition had Roth say "This is where horror's at. This is what I wanna do", with his 2005 film Hostel even having Miike make a cameo appearance.
The screenplay for the film was done by Daisuke Tenga based on the book of the same name by Ryu Murakami (published in 1997 but only translated in English in 2009). The idea for making the film came by the company Omega Project, who had previously made money with Ring (1998). This film was shot in three weeks. Evidently, the film received attention for something about feminism or its climax when it comes to, well, being one to not miss. A festival screening apparently saw one person say, "You are sick!" during the Q&A session afterwards while another screening saw someone pass out. It is a slow burn of a film for 113 minutes that plays with the audience in its operation of manners that in a different light could have been mistaken for a Hitchcock inspiration that got veered into the realm of Cronenberg. Going into the film with as little surprise as possible is the best way to watch it, because it rules to not be prepared for what goes on for a film that builds the dynamic between Shiina and Ishibashi to interesting degrees of expectations meeting reality. The promotions for the film (such as that film poster) didn't exactly make it a complete surprise what you would see with it (which, again, was based on a book people had to have known), but Miike obviously has a passion for Murakami's writing. In fact, he apparently wanted to do a film based on Murakami's 1980 book Coin Locker Babies but couldn't find the funding. The film is all about the nature of where truth meets lies, because it all starts with a son that truthfully thinks his father looks tired and needs a wife. Ishibashi makes this pursuit as captivating as possible, one who makes the idea count that one really can get swept away by a woman with little more than a few phrases and seeing them "audition". The idea is amusing and perhaps a bit pathetic when you look at it under the surface to vie for the affection of a woman under the guise of a lie, and yet there is something that makes you at least see why he would go forward with the ruse as played with Kunimura, who takes it as seriously as part-casting, part-wife scouting. Of course, Shiina (fashion model-turned-actress) is the other key force, selling the dynamic with that righteous sense of timing who is unnervingly graceful. The sequences involving the audition in general make the film where it is for foundation of assumptions in society. No one is who they seem (whether in how they are as shaped by their experiences, trauma or not), which make the ultimate outcome all the more harrowing to see play out. The climax is excellent in taking those assumptions and leveling them into the ground, right down to its final shot in terms of shattered illusions. In conclusion, I really appreciated this film. It builds the degrees of elegance and tension in a manner that can't be appreciated in full unless one sees it all the way through for itself. If watching new directors to start a year for the last few years has taught me anything, one finds some of those directors are really worth looking into on a more regular basis, and Miike may just be one of those examples more than anything. It's a damn good horror film you just have to enter with as little illusions built as possible, and you can take my word for it on that being true.
Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.
Next up: Craig R. Baxley's Stone Cold (1991).
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