“Will you love me — and me alone?”

Rich’s Rating: I’m sorry, but…huh?

Rich’s Review: It’s been said many times, by far greater figures than myself, that the sexes are a mystery to each other. The mental division which determines which side of the ‘I want to shop for shoes for 8 hours’ and the ‘I want to watch the game with a beer’ line you stand behind makes for the exciting mystery that is dating, a slew of Hollywood romantic comedies to keep Meg Ryan in work, and this film, Audition.

However, Audition is no romantic comedy. You see, what I haven’t mentioned is that Audition was spawned from the bizarre world that is Japanese cinema, which for some reason draws me like a moth to a flame, despite knowing that all these films do is confuse me and make me feel inferior, as my previous reviews of Versus and Battle Royale will attest.

Not surprisingly, Audition was no exception to this rule.

I can honestly say, having sat through this film only seven hours ago, I have absolutely no idea what this is about, which is going to make for a fun review. I swear I tried to understand it, really. I paid attention (apart from the parts when I was averting my eyes from the screen – more on that later), tried to understand the freakish bizarre characters, but in the end, as the final credits rolled, I just looked at my housemate (who was watching the film with me), and we both went ‘Okaaaaaaaaaaayyy’ and never spoke of it ever again.

In order to lull you into a false sense of security, Audition starts in a fairly normal manner. We get to meet Shigehiko, established businessman, who’s wife has passed away leaving him to raise their son, Shigeharu, on his own. They have a nice house, nice normal life, everything is peachy. The trouble is, being the caring, considerate son that he is, Shigeharu is concerned that his dad is wearing himself out, and he suggests that he try to re-marry. How that is going to lead to him looking less worn out is a mystery to me – perhaps only married people are allowed massages in Japan or something. Regardless, Shigehiko decides that his son’s idea isn’t a bad one, and so opens himself to the idea of looking for a new lady to share his life.

So far, so simple.

The first problem for Shigehiko is that he’s awfully picky about who he actually wants to date. While talking about it over drinks with a friend of his, Shige happens to mention that he wants a successful, accomplished, beautiful, obedient, cultured and talented woman between 25-35. Way to narrow your options there chief. Shigehiko is concerned that he might not be able to find a woman who fits that description (gee, really?) so his friend, who happens to be a TV producer, suggests that they hold an audition for a fake TV show, asking for actresses with all the qualities Shigehiko desires, so he can pick and choose between them, before laying all his best moves on the lady he likes the best. After agonising over the moral ambiguity of this course of action for approximately 0.5 seconds, Shigehiko decides this is a great idea, and the audition gets set up.

At said audition, Shigehiko meets Asami Yamakazi – and amazingly she seems to be successful, accomplished, beautiful, obedient, cultured and talented; Shigehiko thinks he’s on to a winner here, and so begins to put all his best moves on her, which mainly consists of him taking her to restaurants and acting awkward around her, which I know from experience is always a surefire hit with the ladies.

But while Shigehiko is acting all cow-eyed over this girl, his TV producer friend is a little worried, because some of her background story doesn’t check out. Despite warning Shigehiko that this girl may not be all she appears to be, he decides to go ahead with the relationship anyway. In hindsight, that may not have been the smartest decision he ever makes.

Because young Asami is totally, utterly, and without remorse stone-cold plug-me-into-an-electric-socket-and-watch-my-eyes-light-up gibbering insane. You know when people say “I couldn’t stop looking at the phone, waiting for your call?” Asami takes that to a whole new level by kneeling in her empty run down apartment staring at the phone and drooling till it rings. Now, I’m all for devotion and the like, but that seems a little excessive to me.

The more involved with Asami that Shigehiko gets, the creepier she becomes. He looks into her past, and finds a disturbing trail of dead bodies. We the audience get more and more insight into the way Asami lives, which leaves us looking at the screen just knowing that Shigehiko is gonna be wishing he’d gone to a singles bar instead.

I’m not one for giving away endings to films, and I’m not going to here either, but I would be out of my mind not to at least touch on the final sequence (which was the whole “averting of eyes” thing I mentioned earlier). The whole last reel of the film is very confused, due to old Shigehiko’s evening brandy containing more than just alcohol. Just as the confused images, broken conversations and the like seem to be drawing to a close, they are replaced with one of the most squirm-inducing sequences in cinema ever.

It’s skin-crawlingly awful. It’s the kind of thing where, if you’re a horror fan, you will be watching with eyes wide not quite believing how evil and disturbing it is. If you’re a horror fan and a big wuss like me, you’ll be watching the same sequence through your fingers, while occasionally going “Oh, no!” It’s nasty, graphic, and oh-oh-OH so horrible. And if you’re one of those people who don’t like injections, you should probably not watch the last 15 minutes of this film at all, and go watch Bambi instead. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.

Like most Japanese films I’ve seen, when the credits rolled on Audition I had the terrible feeling that I’d missed something important. Just like with Battle Royale, I got the impression that the story we see on screen isn’t really the story being told – that there is some other element in there that has completely gone over my gaijin head and left me looking foolish.

Why should you watch Audition? Well, if you’re a horror fan, my description above must have you wondering what exactly it was that made me go ‘Ohhhh’ and grab my mouth in sympathy while watching it. If so, beware – this film is no Hollywood thrill-ride; it takes a long time for the action to get going, but once it does, it’s less of a rollercoaster, and more like being pushed off a tall cliff – just a long helpless fall. If you’re not a horror fan, and don’t like confusing/surreal films, don’t watch it. You’ll hate it, honestly.

In the meantime, I’m just off to join a monastery. If Audition is anything to go by, dating just became a very dangerous game.