I think it's safe to say that Korean cinema has an obsession with serial killers. Hit movies like The Chaser, I Saw the Devil, and Memories of Murder have become iconic while others like Tell Me Something, Save the Green Planet, and Monster arguably should be. Add to that evergrowing serial killing catalogue of excellence, the heart-pounding Missing You, Mo Hong-jin's warpedly effective thriller which features two mass murderers pursued by the lunatic child of a long-dead victim. (This mentally deranged survivor is racking up a string of killings all her own, thank you very much.) Indeed, everyone in Missing You is violently unwell: recently released madman Kim Kee-beom (Kim Sung-oh) who favors stabbing, his insane childhood buddy Jung Min-Soo (Oh Tae-kyung) who prefers slicing, their primary threat, hyperfocused vigilante Nam Hee-ju (Shim Eun-kyung), and the not-so-brightm police officer assigned to the case Dae-yeong (Yun Je-mun), a man so obsessed with fingering Kim for every crime that he overlooks a lot of clues pointing in another direction.
Is the cop's fixation on the ex-con understandable? I think so. Kim's performance as Kim is supercreepy. Who wouldn't want to see him put back in the slammer for whatever? Yet Kim's hardly the craziest character on screen. That honor belongs to Shim's Nam, who's covered one wall floor-to-ceiling with yellow post-it notes of Nietzsche quotes while her inherited basement apartment's floor boards are carpeted with articles and images related to a series of unsolved killings dating back to her traumatic childhood. Her choice to knit scarves for every member of the precinct where she serves as a mascot isn't simply redirected obsessive-compulsive behavior energy, it's also one small part of an elaborate plan leading up to the day when the courts will sentence whoever eventually gets caught. Will she be there for the trial? And if she does, will she be dressed once again like the Morton Salt Girl? Watch Missing You and see.
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