The movie is one massive build up. From the moment we see our girl sitting in her apartment staring holes through the phone waiting for the call--only to learn she has a guy tied up in a laundry bag in the background--to the climax, this movie is filmmaking gold. It also scores big points from me because I have a phobia for needles, which is good because I like it when a movie gets under your skin and tortures you, because well, it's a movie, and a horror movie at that, which is exactly what movies should be.

This was my first Takashi Miike movie (my second was "Ichi", kinda' a tone shift there), and I've been a big fan of his ever since. He knows how to make one hell of a good movie, and this is probably his finest in terms of raw, jagged, nerve-shredding terror.

The pacing on this movie is pretty slow, which can be a bad thing if it's not kept interesting enough. Luckily, Audition remains interesting through the whole movie. It also switches gears from being a simply dramatic type movie to a weird psychological thriller with some graphic torture to boot. It pulls off the transition well, going from relatively normal, to normal with a slight edge of uneasiness, to just really weird and messed up.

All the actors did a good job. Ryo Ishibashi pulled off a normal, likeable leading guy. A character that you can actually care about what happens to them as opposed to not really giving a crap. Also, Eihi Shiina, who plays Asami, is just creepy all the way through, progressively more so as the movie goes on. Everyone else is good enough to keep the movie going and enjoyable as well.

Really, there are only hints of things up until about the last forty-five minutes or so. That's when the movie really gets weird. And it gets weird in a really cool, psychological way. For a few minutes, I was just like, "Huh?" and wondering if the DVD skipped or what happened, but as it went on, I realized what was going on and it was cool. The torture scene was pretty graphic and disturbing, and definitely cringe-worthy, but it could've gone on a bit longer. And the ending itself was a little bit of a letdown.

Overall: Audition was interesting and it had some cool aspects. Worth renting and checking out if you like Asian horror flicks or just weird, kinda psychological, thriller type stuff.

Having just discovered Japanese movies, and how good the Horror films are that they produce, I sat down and tucked into Audition, after seeing Ring and Ring 2, I thought their grasp of mixing horror with a good suspenseful story ranked very highly. Audition proves just that, again.

The first three quarters of the film is a simple story of a man looking for a possible wife years after his first wife died. He's a lonely man who confides in his work to earn money purely to care for his son. He story moves slowly, perhaps too slowly at times, but with such natural acting, you believe in it entirely. Then, just as you think this may be nothing more than a simple story of a man and a woman growing love for each other, small doubts are placed in the characters minds.

The doubts soon begin to grow, and as more and more strange things occur, the viewer is placed in a position where they are in as much doubt as the main character.

Then comes the last quarter of the film, and oh my lord, will you be amazed. I have never seen so many different types of emotion as I have when watching people viewing this film for the first time. Suffice to say, it's something I have never seen in any film before. I was aghast.

This is an amazing film, if just for the ending, and as the Director says on the DVD, it's just a story to show how someone's everyday life can take a dramatic turn with just one small decision.