The "hype" or what ever you want to call it, that surrounds this film was completely lost on me. I knew literally nothing about it apart from it had a shocking part. So I mostly ignored this information and just watched the film.

I thought the beginning was great. It moved, it built character and it set up themes from the get go.

The middle for me does sag a tiny bit but only because the gears sort of switch to a full blown romance but then the suspense starts to creep back into the movie. It begins to recapture the attention of the audience.

Then there is the end. This was the part I took a small issue with. The dream sequence? It felt like sort of a dump of information. As if they had a lot to explain and they just threw it all in that one part to try and catch the audience up a little bit. I think that part could be slightly refined. But the actual ending. Wow it is so uncomfortable and brutal. But not just the violence. The reasons behind the violence.

My take away from this film is it wants to look at the gender dynamics and gender roles of Japan. From the start where the men are actually "Auditioning" people for them to date. Like think about how gross that is. It is power that they think they have because they are men. They get the pick of the crop. They will only choose the best.

Then obviously the story of the lead woman is tragic and I feel once again leads to this power struggle between genders, the men in her life take and take and take from her. They cause her pain because they can. To them she is below them.

That is just my take. Maybe it has nothing to do with that hahaha. I just think it's an interesting way to view this movie and also gives it more merit than being "that movie that has the shocking scenes"

It's very odd. Director Miike made perhaps my very favorite Japanese movie (HAPPINESS OF KATAKURIS) and the Japanese movie I hate most (this one). It's not that this movie is TECHNICALLY bad--the acting and production values are fine. It's just that the story goes from an apparently cute tale of a guy trying to pick up girls to a sick and twisted mess that adds absolutely NOTHING of value to my existence. I really wish I could get surgery that would ONLY remove the part of my brain that remembers seeing this horrific and just plain sick film. Do NOT let your kids see this, do NOT let Grandpa see it and DON'T EVEN LET BLIND PEOPLE SEE IT!!! This is a sick and sadistic piece of evil that is masquerading as "art". I am absolutely flabbergasted that so many of the reviews for this movie are positive---even glowing. Who could possibly like a film that ultimately is about a sick and twisted woman who dismembers people and drags them around in a bag!!!! Yup--that's the hidden secret of this film and I wish I had never seen it. It actually scares me that so many people like this type of film--I think I'm buying new locks for all my doors.

AUDITION is a film I knew little about before watching - modern Japanese cinema is something I'm not very knowledgeable about and Japanese "horror" films even less so. I had heard about AUDITION being extremely dark, brutal and disturbing with some amazing twists during its cinema run, so out of curiosity I had to rent it. What I got was a mixed movie, sometimes gripping but definitely not one I would call "entertaining" to watch. For the first hour and twenty minutes, it's a slow-paced tale of romance with some mystery aspects which keeps you watching through some interesting, subdued direction from Takashi Miike. This gives the film its realistic edge, and it also incorporates some strong acting on the parts of the two leads; Ryo Ishibashi creates a portrait of a sad, lonely middle-aged man so that you have a ton of sympathy for his character and can relate to his desperation. In comparison, Eihi Shiina's almost unearthly look - there is something very fragile and beautiful about her - sits well with her mysterious and unexplained character whom nobody else in the film seems to know much about. Shiina is excellent in the role and deserves to go on to a big career in Japan.

For the first hour and twenty minutes - normally the running time for a "normal" Western film - there isn't much horror here to tell about, other than a few flashy disturbing images of a severed tongue slapping on the floor, a man getting his head slowly and deliberately sliced off, and a great shock sequence involving a moving bag. Then, at around that eighty minute mark, the film begins to change and become colder and disturbing. Dreams are mixed with reality to create a visually confusing film and Miike delights in tormenting the viewer with a hideous image of a man in a sack with no feet and few fingers. You begin to wonder what the hell is going on, and then the films ends ambiguously making you wonder whether what you just watched really happened or not.

Before that ending comes one of the strongest - in terms of physical torture - segments of a film that I've yet to see, which is tough to sit through. Basically it's a scene of a paralysed Ishibashi being slowly and deliberately tortured by Shiina, who delights in getting as much pain as possible from her victim. First via the use of strategically-inserted needles, and then in the film's most stomach-churning moment, she actually saws his foot off - in graphic detail. This is far stronger and darker stuff than many of the shoddy and amusing video nasties that were prosecuted in the early '80s, yet is released uncut today in Britain - it shows how much our society has changed. The realism of this sequence makes it pretty nauseous and you can't help but be grateful when it's all over. So did it really happen? I don't know, and I don't plan on watching this film again anytime soon to find out. It's very interesting stuff and highly disturbing, as well as being well-made, but an entertaining movie it is not.