Reviewed by Gerard Magnier, 5th November 2009
‘Audition’ was released in 1999 and was helmed by one Japan’s most notorious and celebrated directors, Takashi Miike. The movie tells the story of Shigeharu, a lonely widower who holds an audition to find the girl of his dreams. Attracting the attention of a beautiful ballerina, Asami, Shigeharu falls deeply in love. Of course, this being a Miike production, things are not what they seem on the surface and we’re soon plunged into a terrifying world of depravity and despair. Miike’s masterful framing techniques and multi-angled approach to capturing all of the on screen activity, in conjunction with the wonderful performances of the cast, has created a highly entertaining movie. The jarring plotline takes an abrupt u-turn midway through proceedings, to deliver some of the most horrific and disquieting imagery ever committed to celluloid. With audience members walking out of cinemas and reputed collapses due to the the shocking nature of the content, this movie certainly has generated a lot of excitement. Is it worth the hype? Yes it is and it’s largely down to Miike luring the audience into a completely false sense of security and then smashing them in the face with a hammer! Ranked by Time as one of the top twenty five horror movies of all time, I tend to agree with this opinion.
Both the audio and video presentations are a bit of a letdown and really don’t impress at any stage. They both offer a worthwhile upgrade from the DVD release but fall a long way short of the quality of other BD’s which are currently available. The extras portion offers an insightful commentary and some interesting interviews. This release is a difficult one to call, due to the poor audio visual quality, but I would definitely recommend this release to anyone who has not seen this movie, as I believe that it’s the best incarnation that we will see on BD for a while.
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07-11-2009, 11:26 AM
E. & O.E.
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