Debuts don¡¯t come much more pungent than Shinzo Katayama¡¯s ¡°Siblings of the Cape¡± (2019). With so many Japanese filmmakers content to be merely tasteful, it was hard not to get your feathers ruffled by a drama about a man pimping out his severely autistic sister.

For his follow-up, Katayama has managed to transition to a larger-scale production without losing his sting. ¡°Missing¡± is a twisty, frequently audacious movie that had me teetering on the brink of my seat, wondering where it was going to head next.

Some of Katayama¡¯s earliest credits were working as an assistant director for Bong Joon-ho (¡°Parasite¡±), and ¡°Missing¡± has elements that will be familiar to fans of the South Korean heavyweight: the genre trappings, abrupt tonal shifts and social critique. That¡¯s a good thing, incidentally.