Audition: Unrated Director's Cut (2001) Rating: Starring: Renji Ishibashi, Ryo Ishibashi, Jun Kunimura, Miyuki Matsuda, Tetsu Sawaki, Eihi Shiina Director: Takashi Miike Category: Foreign Studio: Ventura Subtitles: English Length: 115 mins     As close to an arthouse horror film as one could imagine. Audition has been called a "well-crafted, visually deft piece of grand guignol" (Nick James, Sight and Sound). Audition begins disarmingly when a shy, middle-aged widower, Aoyama, decides to chose his new wife by holding a phony audition for a nonexistent film. He falls for the demure and alluring Asami (Japanese fashion model Eihi Shiina), a former ballerina with a suspect past. Their polite timid courtship takes a 180-degree turn when Asami, trumping the stereotype of the submissive Asian woman, visits her revenge on Aoyama in the most nightmarish of ways. The film morphs from romance to psycho-thriller in the bat of a pierced eyelid. The ending, not for the faint of heart, "realizes a sadistic breach of contract between filmmaker and audience of which Hitchcock could only dream." (Richard Falcon, Sight and Sound).