Verschwunden - Der Fall Lucie Blackman

I know this story pretty well already, having read a few books on it. Tokyo Hostess, in particular, was well written and gave a lot of detail.

This documentary starts when Lucie has already disappeared, so there is no background to her life in Tokyo and her job working in the hostess club. It suffers greatly for this, as this is what would make the casual viewer care about her story.

Instead, it's her father, who I find seriously arrogant, who is star of this show. Not playing down that he lost his daughter, and obviously what happened to Lucie was evil, but I just couldn't deal with him throwing his weight around in another country. I know this won't be a popular opinion. Reading that he accepted a cash payment in hopes of a reduced sentence from a friend of the killer makes him look even worse, honestly.

Lucie took a silly risk to make easy money (again, in no way makes what happened to her okay). Father has the air of wealth, so not sure why he didn't just fund her holiday instead of letting her do that. Even a safe country has its issues.

The only thing I could personally think of throughout the entire thing was who in their right mind would let their 21 year old daughter go across the world to completely unknown place to work in a hardly legal semi anonymous dark place baiting old men for money, knowingly putting themselves in harm's ways.

The fact that the father never addressed that is baffling. World must had felt a safer place 20 years ago when no parent questioned this. I find this beyond comprehension. The fact that she disappeared less than a month into a job is scary. These are the issues that should had been addressed.

Has everything you'd want in a true crime documentary: a fascinating case, tons of archival footage, linear storytelling, very little (if any) re-enactments, a beautiful score and some stunning photography (Tokyo is a beautiful city). Not to mention interviews with the actual people involved. So many docs these days fail in at least one of these areas so it's nice to see one that does it all right for a change.

Obviously it's a sad case and a terrible situation for her family, so you can't fault her father for wanting answers. And that's another fascinating element to this case is the dynamic between her family (father, generally) and the Japanese police who handle things a bit differently than we're used to in the West.

Overall, one of the best true crime docs I've seen this year. Definitely recommend.

Shamelessly disregarding the clumsiness and stupidity of the Japanese police, never talking about the phone calls Philippe recieved on the first day of Lucie missing and police not bothering to trace ,nor about the £450,000 (in 2006) Tim Blackman received to "forgive" Obara. Why was no one else from Lucie's friends and family interviewed? Why was Caritas liver biopsied 15 years later? Why only the people that walked over her blood were there? Why was there no mention of the phone calls Lucie made on the day to inform her friend of her whereabouts which the police decided to ignore? Utterly biased and shamelessly fooling!

Internationally known as "Missing: The Lucie Blackman Csse", this is a feature-length documentary of a true crime case. Taking place in 2000's Japan, a 21-year british girl has gone missing in Tokyo. This documentary gives an overview of the facts that happened since she went missing.

What makes this true crime documentary interesting is not only the large (inter-)national attention that the case a caught in the 2000's, but also how exactly her father was able to gain all the attention and thereby pressure the japanese police to take all the actions possible to push this case forward. In my opinion, it is exactly this pressure that got this case eventually solved.

The documentary is based on (1) interviews with many involved parties - e.g. Family, press, police, (forensic) investigators - combined with (2) footage from 2000 that was taped during the course of the investigation, and (3) newly recorded footage on-site. It is an attractive combination of material that gives the viewer an overview of many relevant facts of the investigation that took place. Unfortunately, we get to see practically nothing of the trial(s) itself.

What I found missing in this documentary, is more information on whom exactly Lucie Blackman was. Yes, we get some information on her having been a stewardess and now a hostess in Japan. But other than that, we only get to see a photo of how she looked. It would have been more fair to her, if the documentary would have put more time in describing her youth, interests and upbringing. Some interviews with former friends would have given the viewer some emotional connection with her.

What I also would have liked to see, is more information on the "profession" of being a hostess in Japan. This topic was only covered very shortly by interviews with two authors that wrote a book on this profession. These short interviews got me as viewer left with more questions than answers - a fact that I think other viewers will also experience.

Summarizing, I found the documentary an interesting watch. For someone interested in true crime, it will also give an idea of how cases are investigated in Japan. As such, I award this documentary a score of 7.2/10, thereby making it a 7-star IMDb rating.