Miss­ing Child Video­tape – first-look review

Still har­bour­ing immense guilt from being the last per­son to see his younger broth­er Hina­ta pri­or to his dis­ap­pear­ance 13 years ago, Kei­ta (Sugi­ta Rairu) leads a qui­et life work­ing in a super­mar­ket and keep­ing him­self to him­self. He lives with his ami­able school teacher room­mate Tsuka­ka (Amon Hirai) who has issues of his own – name­ly his sec­ond sight, although he seems odd­ly serene about his abil­i­ty to see ghosts. The pair’s com­pan­ion­able, easy-going lives are dis­rupt­ed one day fol­low­ing two strange events: first, Kei­ta finds a miss­ing boy in a near­by for­est, and then he receives a par­cel from his estranged moth­er which con­tains a VHS tape he record­ed as a child.

It is this tape that gives Kon­do Ryota’s fea­ture debut its title, as the footage shows the moment Hina­ta dis­ap­peared on Mount Mushi­ro, inside an aban­doned build­ing while play­ing hide and seek with Kei­ta. The footage is suit­ably omi­nous in its sim­plic­i­ty; there are no jump­scares, or even any­thing overt­ly shock­ing. Instead, there’s just a per­va­sive feel­ing of dread as the young Kei­ta becomes increas­ing­ly fran­tic when he can­not find his lit­tle broth­er. Angry with his moth­er for send­ing him the tape all these years lat­er, Kei­ta resolves to con­front her.

Mean­while, Mikoko (Sō Mori­ta), a dogged cub reporter, is look­ing for Kei­ta, hav­ing made the con­nec­tion between his brother’s dis­ap­pear­ance and the child he found recent­ly. But as Mikoko tries to get an inter­view with Kei­ta, she uncov­ers more and more odd details about the place where Hina­ta dis­ap­peared and becomes obsessed with the sto­ry much to her editor’s chagrin.

Kon­do Ryota stud­ied under Hiroshi Taka­hashi whose prov­i­dence with­in J‑Horror is strong; per­haps the plot device of a VHS tape is a nod to his men­tor, but unlike the tape of the Ring fran­chise, the curse of Keita’s old fam­i­ly video is metaphor­i­cal rather than phys­i­cal. Yet the film is undoubt­ed­ly a ghost sto­ry, with Tsuka­ka non­cha­lant about his abil­i­ty to see dead peo­ple, and Hinata’s pres­ence (or lack there­of) loom­ing large in Keita’s life. A slow-burn mys­tery unfolds, imbued with the same unset­tling atmos­phere of Keita’s video­tape, uncom­fort­able in its simplicity.

It is a tan­ta­lis­ing­ly restrained film, par­tic­u­lar­ly com­pared to the ghost sto­ries that loom large in cin­e­ma. Sim­i­lar­ly, Ryota refus­es to hold the audience’s hand, opt­ing for ambi­gu­i­ty that leaves us unsure if we can trust our own eyes, let alone the pro­tag­o­nist who seems so remorse­ful about his brother’s dis­ap­pear­ance. As a debut fea­ture, it is par­tic­u­lar­ly aus­pi­cious, remark­able in its sim­plic­i­ty – our human desire to fill in the blanks means the nar­ra­tive doesn’t end when the cred­its roll.