Missing (2009)
Salacious and exploitative, this is unpleasant viewing in the wrong way…
Nope, this isn’t the Tsui Hark movie again. And it’s definitely that film with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, though it shares use of missing person stats in order to bump up its allegedly ‘based on a true story’ status.
When young wannabe Hyun-ah (Jeon Se-hong, Time, The Beast) joins director Hong on a stop off at a farm for a locally renowned chicken soup, she doesn’t realise her world is about to be turned upside down. The farm’s owner, Pan-gon (Moon Sung-keun, Green Fish, Public Enemy Returns), takes a ‘liking’ to her and soon she finds herself imprisoned in his basement as he rapes and tortures her.
Her disappearance doesn’t go unnoticed, as her older sister Hyun-jung (Choo Ja-hyun, Bloody Tie, Portrait of a Beauty) comes looking for her. Undeterred by the local police forces lack of interest, can she find Hyun-ah in time to save her…
With more than a few overtones of Wolf Creek, mixed with the so-called ‘torture porn’ of US films like Hostel, there’s something rather unpleasant about director Kim Sung-hong’s film, and it’s not the violence. Kim films his protagonists torture in a salacious and highly sexualised manner, rather than dwelling on the true horror of the situation.
I rather feel like I’ve fallen through a wormhole and woken up in the early 80s watching one of those really poor, usually Italian, exploitation cash-ins that barely made it to video before they got wrenched off our shelves (along with every decent horror made in the 70s and early 80s).
No, I’ve checked. It is still 2011. (Although I did get confused for a minute. Conservative government, recession…)
Worse still, the film claims to be based on true events that ‘shocked a nation’, as were Na Hong-jin’s The Chaser, Bong Joon-ho’s Memories Of Murder and to a lesser degree Sion Sono’s Cold Fish. (And so too was the obvious inspiration, Wolf Creek, allegedly.) Mind you, if you can track down exactly what case this based perhaps you can let me know?
Perhaps that’s why the makers (and by proxy, the UK distributors) chose to hook onto a decidedly ropey interpretation of Korea’s missing persons statistics. According to those figures: ’154,000 people go missing in Korea every year. Of those, 25% are found dead. Only 1% survives the ordeal. The rest are still… Missing.’ Yep, I know, my maths isn’t great either, but something doesn’t quite add up.
Namely, the implication is that everyone that goes missing in Korea is being held captive in a remote village by a murderous, single older gentleman who feels trapped into looking after an ailing mother. A vision somewhat shared in one of the characters in Jo Sung-Hee’s End Of Animal, so maybe there is some credence to this sweeping generalisation?
Villages, by the way, that are dominated by dangerously eccentric hillbillies and inept police. (Not that Korean films confine the later to the countryside.) Surely it can’t be that bad? Yet again this has been echoed I’m portrayals such as Lee Jeong-ho’s Bestseller. Is it just me, or is this becoming something of an offensive characterisation?
(Just to be on the safe side, though, I’m not stepping out if Seoul.)
You almost wonder if Kim Sung-hong doesn’t have a few issues to sort out. According to IMDB his previous work includes A Growing Business, a horror comedy in the style of The Quiet Family; The Hole, about a woman facing domestic violence from her mother-in-law; and Say Yes, about a couple who pick up a Hitcher, Rutger Hauer style.
It strikes me that, whatever the supposed source material, there’s a more interesting story here: what about the people that are abducted and held captive for, on some occasions, years?
The films narrative doesn’t flow at all well. Often I kept double checking I hadn’t missed some plot points or even nuances about the characters, but the truth is I doubt they were ever there. The director gives us little to care about in his characters, instead concentrating most on Pan-gon, the effective result being to cast him almost sympathetically.
With little to redeem it save a Blue Velvet inspired karaoke scene, it’s not until the final reel that the film finally manages to build up some suspense ‚ mainly by throwing in a ton of red herrings so you really can’t guess where it’s going next. (It also achieves it by proving that no character us out of bounds for the chop!)
There are also gapping holes. For instance, Hyun-ah’s sister notices her disappearance and begins searching for her, but no one notices director Hung has been missing just as long, or even asks about him?
Thematically there are some connections with Kim Jee-Woon’s I Saw The Devil, and I can’t help thinking the UK distributors were hoping for some friendly fallout with that film’s upcoming release. Only there’s no comparison here: Missing has none of that film’s intelligence, let alone filmmaking talent.
(It seems even the distributors lost faith in this release, omitting their usual comprehensive package of special features for a couple of trailers.)
Don’t get me wrong; I’ve no problem with a loose interpretation of facts. Cinema is for enjoying, not being preached to. But I don’t like a film pretending to use facts to give it credibility. I also don’t have a problem with exploitation, but I do prefer it to be fun. And you shouldn’t mix the two!
Disappointing…
Missing is released today on DVD by Cine Asia.
DVD details
Distributor: Cine Asia (UK)
An uncharacteristically minimal release from Cine Asia, the only extras are a teaser and theatrical trailer.
[...] Missing South Korea 2009 DVD review | easternkicks.com Worse still, the film claims to be based on true events that 'shocked a nation', as were Na Hong-jin's The Chaser, Bong Joon-ho's Memories Of Murder and to a lesser degree Sion Sono's Cold Fish. BUY ONLINE FROM HMV (UK). DVD UK DVD [...]
Dream Dvd Hong February 2nd, 2011 at 12:19 pm[...] might be easy to compare this to recent efforts like Kim Sung-hong’s Missing, but that isn’t even in the same book, let alone page. With a fine supporting cast including Park [...]
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