The Missing

Colour, 35 mm
Taiwan, 2003, 88 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

A municipal park has been reopened in the Taiwanese capital, however, two thirds of it are surrounded by an iron wall. Only a small patch in the middle is reserved for children who play on the climbing frames and the swings. Their parents are keeping an eye on them and it seems as if no harm can come to anyone here. Despite this, a 3-year-old boy disappears from the park, whose grandmother went off to the toilet for a few minutes. The desperate woman searches the whole area, she alerts the park attendant and the police, but to no avail. Her grandson seems to have disappeared into the ground. Just like the old man who was last seen on a walk in the city park: his grandson vainly searches for him in the evening... In many Taiwanese films Taipei is described as the "city of spirits". Between the lines of this story "about the inability to see", director Lee Kang-sheng also points to decaying family relationships in Taiwanese families. People live in their own enclosed worlds; they are unable to communicate with other members of the family and traditional strong ties are disintegrating...

About the director

Lee Kang-sheng (b. 1968, Taipei) never studied acting but he still managed to become one of Taiwan´s leading film actors (appearing, for example, in The Kid, Rebels of the Neon God, The River, Ordinary Heroes, A Way We Go, Goodbye, Dragon Inn and a number of others). For the film Vive l´amour he won Best Actor at the festival in Nantes, and for his performance in What Time Is It There? he was awarded at the Manila IFF. The Missing is his directing debut and he is currently making a second film called Help Me. "Over the past ten years, I was continually acting in other people´s films, portraying the experiences of others. But, actually, I really want to take my own experiences, my own thoughts, my own stories and, in my own way, share it with others. So I decided to make a film about "missing", for which I found inspiration in my own family", says the director.