Missing

Director: Sung-Hong Kim (2009)

Starring: Chu Ja-Hyeon, Mun Seong-Kun, Jeon Se-Hong

Find it: IMDB

Cruel Korean kidnapping with Missing, in which a girl goes on the hunt for her disappeared sister. She lies in the hands of crazy old farmer Pan-kon (Seong-Kun). Hyeon-jeong (Ja-Hyeon) manages to track her sister down to Pan-kon's village. When the kidnapping serial killer takes a shine to Hyeon-jeong it looks like she too is headed for trouble.

It's a more conventional thriller than those spoiled by such Korean gems as Oldboy, The Chaser and the seminal Man From Nowhere might maybe expect. It's based on the true story of a 70-year-old fisherman who killed four women over the course of two months in 2007. That these are apparently the "ingredients of a Friday The 13th" makes elements of Missing seem exploitative and uncomfortable to watch. Also, Missing is in no way like Friday The 13th. It has none of the ingredients of Friday The 13th. I hope they kept the receipt, because their Friday The 13th cookbook sucks.

'True crime' aspect aside, Missing has a very rapey vibe to it. Heavily modelled on such films as Wolf Creek, its heroines are abused and tortured in uncomfortable detail. A birthday cake is shoved up a poor girl's arse and then her teeth are extracted after she bites his knob during a bout of non-consensual oral sex.

This aside, Missing is tense, gripping and taut with a horrible villain, a pair of sympathetic heroines and some interesting side characters. The film makes use of a very nice yellow sticky tape in its choice of gag. There are elements of Hannibal in Pan-kon's feeding victims to farm animals. There are far better kidnap films out there (Missing isn't even the best kidnap film to be called Missing). If you decide to skip this one, you really aren't Missing much.