A widower holds an audition for a new wife and gets more than he bargained for in Takashi Miike’s notorious shocker AUDITION, coming to 4k UHD via Arrow Films this month.
The Film
TW: Animal death, child abuse, bodily mutilation, and… well, it’s a Miike film.
I fondly recall a night early in our relationship, sitting down to watch a movie with my now-wife. We were watching her choice, from a friend’s recommendation. A good chunk of the way through, she says, “I thought this was a horror film, not a romance. Okay, not romance, as it’s creepy, this guy picked his new wife from a fake line-up he made. But still.” Four minutes later, a bag falls over, and she lets out a “ooooh.. What the FUCK?” A line that would continue the next hour as we winced, shuffled in our seats, and were rather disturbed.
As the article title would suggest, we were watching Audition, director Takashi Miike’s shocking story of the consequences of bringing the wrong person into your life (even if you brought her in under false circumstances). Fear not, readers: she likes disturbing things. The recommendation was “disturbing movies,” but she forgot the prompt when she saw the disc on my shelf, and just remembered the title. That prompt is one forever attached to the 1999 film, a big push in introducing the wild likes of Miike to American audiences (it was my entry point, and a great way for me to introduce unsuspecting Blockbuster patrons during my stint at the store when it hit VHS here in 2002). After 27 years and countless viewings, the Daisuke Tengan-penned film, from the novel by Ryu Ishibashi, still holds up.
Audition is a uniquely disturbing picture. Not just in the atrocious, horrific physical acts, but an uncomfortable air in the proceedings that led to all the nastiness. Shigeharu Aoyama, played exceptionally well by American Yakuza’s Ryo Ishibashi, is a widower, and with his son now a teenager, is ready to start dating. A friend works in the movie business, and he sets up a fake audition (title!) to find the right woman for Aoyama. He thinks he does in Asami, played with an iconic brilliance by Eihi Shiina, but it goes so wonderfully and cringe-inducingly wrong. So under it all is a hum of misogyny: both in the direct producer-friend and Aoyama’s grooming of the situation, but in Aoyama’s actions after. It’s clear something is strange and disconcerting with Ayumi, but that’s only the audience’s knowledge. Without this knowledge, it’s uncomfortable with how Aoyama is going about everything, and despite the red flags and oddities, he continues. It all comes to a violent, disturbing, gut-wrenching end, stuff that sticks to you.
Audition is a film about how terrible people can treat one another to get what they want. The things they’ll do to push themselves and what they’ll do to others for whatever reason; mislaid understandings, broken relationships, and twisted ideas of companionship and connection. I can’t and won’t describe those physical actions, leaving them up to the first-time viewers that might be out there. It’s about how our pasts reflect our future, as while Asami has issues, we know the reason, and how abuse in childhood can make a twisted reflection for the adult.
It’s not just physical actions to why Audition persist. Gross-out body horror just to have it doesn’t remain so strong in the public consciousness. It’s the human horrors underneath, the strong characters, that grasp and pull into their messed-up world. Tengan’s screenplay (and premining the book) starts down a spiral staircase of their minds and needs, and histories. Audition is more than Asami’s terror.
Miike films with an uncomfortable edge, never setting the camera in a normal way, continually feeling disoriented and off. Even at nearly two hours, Audition holds attention with a tense unease. It’s a wonder Miiki, ever so prolific with a half dozen films every year, can craft incredibly well-shot films at his speed. But he has the care of a big planner.
Audition is still talked about in “holy shit, did you see this” film circles (I’ve seen it come up a bit in the discourse around Curry Barker’s Obsession), and it does so for how strong it works. The fantastic script homes in on misogyny and female vengeance of expectations of gender roles, also finding powerful shock that remains. Great leads by Ishibashi and Yamazaki, and sharp direction from Takashi Miike, say pick Audition.
The Package
Arrow offers Audition on a single disc 4k (no Blu-ray option). The disc art is a mix of the two new pieces of connected art by Graham Humpreys, as seen on the booklet, one side of the reversible sleeve (with the other the original art), and a cardboard O-Ring. It goes in a black 4k case with the booklet.
The Presentation
Of the whole box, this may be the weak part. While my disc is 4k, it’s not that different from earlier formats. Don’t get me wrong, it looks good, but not a huge thing. The transfer is a 4k restoration from the original 16mm, approved by DP Hideo Yamamoto, and is available for Dolby Vision. The sound design is a highlight in Miike’s movies, especially in the back end. The dialogue is in Japanese, original stereo, and 4.0 with English subtitles.
The Features
Arrow previously released Audition on Blu-ray in 2018, picking up from the earlier 2009 Shout Factory and/or Outland Blu-ray/DVD. This release ports over all previous extras from those and adds a few.
Commentaries
1 – Director Takashi Miike & screenwriter Daisuke Tengan (2009)
The pair gives a nice talk, going in depth on adapting, the cultural and international response, the themes of the film, and how they did it. Miike, in particular, gets into the strange ways it hit audiences. Thoughtful and full. Though I’ll have to disagree with him: Audition is a horror film. In Japanese with English subtitles.
2- Tom Mess – Miike Biographer (2018)
Mes is meh. Catchy, yeah, but wasn’t in my head until I sat down. But Mes’s commentary track isn’t much. Maybe it was his low, gravely voice (not his fault there), but it was a drone that didn’t offer much. I couldn’t hear elsewhere in the features, on the first track, or otherwise. Completely failed to grab me.
Callback (new)
Ryo Ishibashi talks about the continued appeal of the film and the surprises of working on it, 25 years later. (8m)
Ties That Bind (2016)
Takashi Miike digs fully into the film, discussing how it came, the performances, and the lasting impact. Like the commentary track, it gets into the details with his specific, odd way of approach. Really great talk ; (30m)
Damaged Romance (2016)
Appreciation by Japanese cinema historian Tony Rayns. Interesting, getting into all the details around the film and its impact. The whole thing is a static shot of Rayns, could have used some film clips to keep it visually interesting, especially when referencing specific things in Miike’s work (but I get it, rights and all) (35m)
Interviews (archival) (2009)
Without breaking down the individuals, each subject talks about their career up to and after Audition (with more time on this, of course) to 2009. Fun hearing Shiina be Bruce Campbell to Miike’s Raimi. But all good talks about the impact of the film on people and themselves.
Ryo Ishibashi: Tokyo to Hollywood (16m)
Eihi Shiina: From Audition to Vampire Girl (20m)
Rinji Ishibashi: Miike’s Plaything (20m)
Ren Osugi: The Man in the Bag (16m)
Deeper into Audition (2024/new to this release)
Critic Alexandra Heller-Nicolas speaks about misogyny and the culture around Audition that it talks to. I never connected Asami’s dishwashing gloves and apron as a representation of expectations until now. (11m)
Trailers
Two spoiler-heavy trailers: one Japanese and one International
Image Gallery
31 production stills.
Booklet
A bound 44-page book with the norms plus three essays: “Everyone in Japan is Lonely” by Jennie Kermode, about the communication breakdown of society as represented in the film, “Deeper, Deeper, Deeper” by Jamie Graham, showing how the themes present in 1999 have only grown since then, and “Guilty of Romance” by Anton Bitel, which gets more into lonliness and copoing wiht loss. All three have a wonderufl depth and shift in point-of-view, discussing the film in deeper meanings.
Final Thoughts
If you haven’t seen Audition, pick this up, and you are in for a treat of a fantastic film that is messed up in wonderful ways. If you have, it’s a good update to the previous editions, with new features and all. Audition will be released on 4k by Arrow in June, 2026.