The Missing (Bu jian) (2003) (NR)

synopsis

Amidst the swings and singsong of children's laughter at a park playground, a grandmother steps away for just a moment to visit the bathroom, entrusting her three-year-old grandson to a grandfatherly gentleman. When she returns, she slowly realizes that she cannot find the little boy. Minutes, and then hours, slip by, and she must bitterly acknowledge that the child is missing. In another part of the city, a teenager who has skipped school plays a video game in an arcade for hours. His dark, inert silhouette leaves a blank space on the screen where his flesh-and-blood image should be. He finds out later that his grandfather was last seen in the park and is missing. People are disappearing, this phenomenon is spreading, and there is no end in sight.