Fantastic Fest 2022 – Film Review

Gripping undercurrents swirl beneath the surface of this intoxicating genre timebomb that springs more whiplash twists than an amphetamine-sponsored Chubby Checker convention.

Former ping-pong club owner Santoshi and his feisty young daughter Kaede are drowning in despair and struggling in near poverty after the traumatic demise of her mother. When Santoshi expresses an interest in a 3 million ¥ bounty on the mixed-up head of a deranged serial killer, and then promptly vanishes, Kaede is convinced her dad is hunting him down.

Determined not to lose another parent to tragedy, she turns detective and sets out to save him from himself and the savage sock pervert No Name. However, to preserve what is left of her family she must become more devious than her quarry and navigate an ever-changing landscape of depraved agendas and increasingly disturbing home truths.

To reveal any more concerning the plot of this extraordinarily bleak journey into the nebulous depths of the human soul would be remiss. As with classic head-fucks like Oldboy and I Saw the Devil before it, a great deal of the pure cinematic joy of Missing is the unerring ability to punish its viewer victims with jaw-dropping curve balls and revelations. And boy, does this majestically crafted killer-thriller have them in grave digging spades.

As a result, any review has to entail brevity as even the shallowest dive into its themes and mechanics could instigate a messy blunder into the spoiler swamp. However, it’s not just the praying mantis of a plot and ninja-like narrative that distinguishes Shinzo Katayama’s fine film.

The characters are fleshed out beautifully with subtly scathing dialogue and sublime acting. Not least from Aoi Itô as the unwaveringly persistent Kaede. It’s a powerhouse performance of tightly masked vulnerability, dogged bravado, and degraded optimism that ricochets around the screen leaving exit wounds of empathy. Easily one of the most accomplished and effortlessly endearing performances of the year.

Jiro Sato is also brilliant as the broken Santoshi, a man who has lost his sense of dignity and identity in the brain-numbing blizzard of grief. Sato gives him a hangdog goofiness that cuts through his apathetic resignation and humanises his nihilistic stupor.

Also riveting is Hiroya Shimizu as No Name, the fingernail-chewing manipulative man whose veracious appetite for sexual degeneracy infects both their lives. Chillingly charismatic and focused, it’s a nuanced portrayal of torrential narcissism that channels the notion that the most deadly of serial killers come armed with magnetism and charm.

Visually, Missing stays pragmatic for the most part so as not to telegraph nor trigger the plethora of narrative booby-traps. But when called upon to embellish and connect the multiple perspectives Naoya Ikeda‘s supple cinematography shifts gears with an exhilarating rush of creative horsepower.

Those who come for the hype of gut-punching reveals must also stay for the epically morbid danger wanks, sadistic pop-up porno mancaves, and hack-saw mutilation if they are to unveil the mysteries of Missing, for its devastating outcome stays buried until the genuinely mesmeric, outrageously metaphorical final scene.

Go in blind and expectation free and you will be rewarded with a masterclass in movie misdirection that will leave you aching to recommend it to others so they too can get ambushed by its latent cunning.