Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case (2023) User Reviews

It is interesting to see how a case is solved in Japan in the year 2000

[Erik_Surewaard · 7/10 · 28 July 2023]

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.

About the case, not the victim

[phenomynouss · 6/10 · 31 July 2023]

There's been a sort of backlash against true crime sensationalism lately, to the sort of degree where there's been an intentional shift towards a focus on the victims of crime rather than the criminals or police. Though even that has gradually started to see this leading to exploitation.

This documentary goes a very odd route by seemingly avoiding the victim to a large degree. Lucie Blackman's disappearance is the driving force here, but from the very start we are essentially following the police and their investigation. We don't know who Lucie Blackman is, what she was doing before she disappeared, who she knew, anything that a typical documentary would, setting up the person, brief backstory, then their disappearance and then the investigation.

Instead we jump straight into the investigation. At the same time, focus is being given to Lucie's father who apparently has to harangue the police into actually investigating this as a crime.

Even from there there's not much actually going on in terms of a narrative here around Lucie Blackman. We're shown her father railing against the cops and their apparent ineptitude but we never actually see or hear how they are mishandling the case at first.

Once the cops start down the case, leads are picked up on and followed but we aren't very clear in terms of how said leads were picked up on and how they even relate to the Blackman case, possibly in large part because we skipped over the basic facts of the case and started the documentary with her already missing and without ever really looking back into the "who what where why how" of her actual disappearance.

This is a documentary, so it's supposed to be informative first, with the entertainment aspect being a sort of uncomfortable pushed-aside element that is implied but never made obvious.

Because of this, it's hard to review a documentary, since critiquing it for being boring or otherwise not entertaining is kind of missing the point and a lot like critiquing the news for constantly moving on to new topics of reporting and discussion.

As a result, my problem with this documentary isn't with the entertainment but with the information given. Namely, we aren't given a lot of information. As mentioned, they start off 3 days after the disappearance, and don't give us the starting facts that almost every missing persons case starts with. As well, when we're being told about certain things, we aren't actually shown enough information that would support what is being shown.

As an example, at one point we are told about a trial and the results of a trial. However we are not given any information as to why the result of the trial ended up how it went, particularly considering that we went along with the discovery of the key bits of evidence with the police. Why did this happen? Why did it fail? From just this documentary alone, we don't know.

Uneven, But Still Interesting . . . .

[sundayatdusk-97859 · 5/10 · 30 August 2023]

This film can definitely leave the viewer with mixed feelings. It was interesting listening to all the interviews with the Tokyo police, and watching how they handled things. Yet you are left wondering if the case was only getting so much attention because of all the pressures from the victim's father, England and the foreign press. Would a Japanese woman's disappearance have gotten so much attention? Obviously not.

Of course, the fact Lucie Blackman was working as a hostess played a part in the original lack of interest from the Tokyo police. The documentary really plays down Ms. Blackman's job, too, making it seem no different than being a waitress or something. It was quite different. Young women flirt and entertain men in the clubs, and can go out with them on paid dinners. There is supposed to be no sex involved, but it's naive to think that never happened and more money was paid.

Lucie Blackman had a stewardess job, but apparently wanted to make more money to pay off debts--a fact the documentary doesn't bring up. Instead, she is presented as a young woman wanting to see the world and experience the fun life in Japan. The Tokyo police apparently ignored reports of crimes from women who worked her job.

Fortunately for all the hostesses in Tokyo, it was the pressured case on Ms. Blackman's disappearance that led to the identity of a horrid wealthy rapist who may have victimized up to 400 women. (The police had gotten complaints about him in the past from some of those victimized and nothing was done.) Unfortunately, this film failed to explain in detail how the rapist was convicted of crimes against other women, but originally found not guilty of any crimes against Lucie Blackman, even though her body was the only one ever found!

Uncommitted to delve deeply

[OneAnjel · 6/10 · 1 August 2023]

By the end, it's clear the point of this doc is to reveal how Lucie's disappearance was the catalyst to finally reveal and then capture a serial criminal the Tokyo police had declined to acknowledge for decades. Even so, I was a bit surprised at the mundane manner this film was done with. I am left wondering why nflx didn't bother to focus on Obara's crimes more, now being revealed as one of the most heinous criminals to come to light. In the few reviews, at least 2 complain that more was not revealed about Lucie, as though she should be the star. One even complains how rude Tim was to leave posters up after being politly told by a police officer it wasn't allowed (!). But they are missing the point. This is a film about how one determined father refused to go quietly away just to help Tokyo maintain the false narrative of politeness and low crime. One of the most interesting takeaways for me was when the female said there's no accurate translation in English for Hostess, that these are girls entertaining wealthy men with no sex expectation. Is she really so naive? We have several names, in fact, and so does Japan including Escort & Geisha - both of which are jobs that claim to be touchless unless the escort wishes but which then force the escort to take risks that assure more income. To claim Hostess is a benign position is extremely naive. This is also a lesson for parents who watch their children go of to foreign lands and insist they suport themselves financially as if to instill integrity. Tim clearly had the money to finance his daughter's trip so why was she working as a prostitude? I will complain that 60% or more is in Japanese with subtitles, which is a big detraction. Over all this is a pedestrian film with only the most superficial information going from point A to point Z leaving most clues and documentation to be deciphered by only those seasoned sleuths but which will seem like bits of unfinished unexplained inuendo to many viewers. I will take the word of one review that states other documentation is a better source. However, since I've never even heard of this case until now, clearly this film is more far-reaching than the book or yt vids. Thanks to Lucie's father, Obara won't hurt anyone else.

A Very Compelling Crime Doc

[tkdlifemagazine · 7/10 · 29 July 2023]

This is a very well done and compelling true crime documentary about the disappearance of a British foreign National in Japan who becomes the linchpin for the investigation into sexual deviance and sexual crime in Japan. The case unveiled a look at how The Japanese police treated sex crimes and crimes against foreigners. The show features archival footage, contemporary interviews, and documents associated with the case. Jake Adelstein, the subject of HOB's Tokyo Vice, is featured as a Western reporter with intimate knowledge of Japan and the Japanese police. The show is good. It is sad, but good. The show has a lot of cultural undertones, and it is tight as far as documentaries go.

Tragic loss of an innocent life

[pinkdove · 7/10 · 29 July 2023]

SPOILERS So many thing in this documentary I must mention.

I feel the people and police in Japan are extremely respectful and helpful.

However I'm horrified at the poor investigation they conducted. There were so many gaps in the whole story. The cops literally followed day to day activities and phone locations of the killer to find the dead body of Lucie and yet they couldn't show any evidence to tie him to her and dude was found not guilty first time around. They didn't even try and look for her saying she might have overstayed her visa and gone into hiding. Duh, did her visa expire ?? They didn't even check her phone locations at any point. Even just cell phone towers it hit.

Her parents went above and beyond to obtain information from local people and setup a tip line and stuck posters for their missing girl. All the while the cops just trying to hinder them. This documentary completely downplayed the terrible investigation done by police. Over 400 victims of rape and they never checked any leads over the years for other cases.

The father, however, a very level headed man. He kept his cool and expressed his feelings so well. Sad that the guy assaulted so many girls and lucie just got unlucky to have been killed in this. They never showed why he decided to kill her unlike all other girls that he used to let go.

Tragic Case. Less-than-Ideal Initial Behavior.

[MeadtheMan · 6/10 · 26 July 2023]

This is obviously a tragic case, the anguish and desperation are perfectly understandable.

However, the attitude? Why do British nationals so often behave like this in an international setting? From British journalists throwing stereotypical comments about another culture, to Tim Blackman's initial disrespect and antagonistic attitude to random Japanese people/cops who are just trying to go about their lives. Again, it's a serious case, and it's understandable that certain standard behavior is out-of-the-window here, but trying to stick your posters anywhere then giving an officer a hard time for nicely telling him not to?

Imagine a foreigner who made a scene in London after their hostess daughter went missing. They then tried to stick posters everywhere downtown, then their entourage of journalists/friends throw stereotypical comments like "oh you know the Brits, they may seem reserved, but there's a dark side under the belly," sneering at the police instead of trying to engage with them first... they might be tackled to the ground forthwith, let alone being given big platforms to present their case to the media and being allowed to do whatever they want (including setting up a hotline, which the Tokyo Met claims might interfere with investigation), all the while with many locals offering assistance.

Look, not suggesting that the Tokyo Met is beyond reproach here, all police forces are flawed, including the Scotland Yard, and their actions deserve scrutiny. Just saying that a sense of self-entitlement isn't going to help anything.

Shameless & Eluding Facts

[Jrmpgm · 1/10 · 30 July 2023]

Extremely biased story telling, eluding many important facts of the story, including the father receiving 450k£ from the killer to limit his sentence, or the existence of her friend and colleague who had received a phone call from the killer on day one.

Only the father and cops are giving testimonies to re-write History, and skip all the aspects that could hurt Japanese police.

When you check who the director is, you understand the story is told in a way to clean Tokyo police image only.

Netflix should be ashamed of producing such content, without any fact checking, and depicting an absolutely misleading representation of the actual story.

Go on YouTube or listen to podcasts, you will have better quality content to understand the full story instead of wasting your time with this piece of propaganda.

Excellent true crime documentary

[KU_Jayhawks · 8/10 · 1 August 2023]

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.

Utterly biased and shamelessly fooling.

[shkbans · 1/10 · 30 July 2023]

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!

Slow Crime Documentary

[billcr12 · 3/10 · 26 July 2023]

I was familiar with this case, having read the thoroughly researched book by Richard Lloyd Parry, "People Who Eat Darkness" back in 2017.

Very little information is given about the killer who is only shown a few times in grainy black and white photographs. Endless interviews with Japanese detectives are shown and Lucie's father is also showcased and he was quite understandably unhappy with the initial investigation of his missing daghter.

She was working as a hostess at a nightclub where young ladies encourage mostly much older lonely men seeking companionship to spend as much money as possible.

Lucie made the fatal mistake of leaving the club with a serial rapist and killer.

The usual melodramatic music and reenactments fill the screen and I recommend reading the aforementioned book instead.

Couldn't get through this

[caffeinequeen18 · 2/10 · 14 August 2023]

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.

Misleading and sensationalist

[danielth-781-507519 · 1/10 · 26 July 2023]

This documentary completely, and somewhat disgracefully, overlooks the utter incompetence and laziness of the Japanese police. There is no mention of how utterly useless and slow the police were for large parts of the investigation. There are also a couple of very significant points about the investigation that are overlooked or misrepresented to paint the police in a much more favourable light. Quite a disgusting documentary on something so utterly horrific.

It does not take long at all to find out the information that this documentary so drastically misses the mark on.

It seems strange how what appears to be the entirety of the Japanese police force interviewed in the film, but then again if you realised you could have the chance to gloss over catastrophic errors in your job history I'm sure you would do the same.

Absolute garbage

[ellipseanostalrius · 1/10 · 30 July 2023]

Half hour in and I can't watch anymore. There are no facts. No one knows anything. Nothing of substance about whatever happened is discussed.

Japanese police must have been morons. They think one guy might be a suspect for no given reason. The find the guy, ask him if he did it...no, he had an alibi. So the Japanese police have to start over again. Start over again from what??? Absolutely nothing about the case is mentioned.

WTF is this.

Lots of spine-tingling music and opinions about the police or the father of the girl...but not a single fact. How am I supposed to be interested when nothing is related about the case?

Whoever made this, stahp. Stay away from documentaries, movies, anything cinema, books, magazine articles, or even trying to relate an interesting anecdote.

Sad...

[silvia_kobliskova-22502 · 5/10 · 28 July 2023]

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.

Lacking but interesting

[pik923 · 5/10 · 28 July 2023]

Interesting how two different cultures conflict with each other in the police investigation of w Blackman. But the story behind the story like Lucile's upbringing her mother her father her siblings life before she became an airline hostess. What was her family life before she traveled to Japan? Too bad because it's an important story glad I watched the film yet too many holes. Was hoping there would be flashbacks but none really. I don't know if the parents chose that or not. For instance were her parents living together when Lucie disappeared? How did her father Tim support his time in Japan hiw king did he stay there what was his occupation? Where did Lucie grow up?

A doc without details

[Xavier_Stone · 1/10 · 19 January 2024]

I don't think it all that hard to create a documentary when you have people willing to get in front of a camera and tell their stories. A little bit of narration and editing, and done.

The difficult part is making the stories interesting. Such as providing a back story into the victim, which here we have none. Perhaps describing the nature of their work, personal life. Nope, a Japanese hostess is equal to a waitress when actually it is more like a soft prostitute hence the large increase in pay doing the same thing as a waitress.

Then maybe have the police give interviews, but they actually reveal no good details as it was such a botched investigation. And this doc doesn't call it out, just ignores it and moves on.

So many missing answers to obvious questions it becomes a quest into why the doc was made in the first place. I can only think it was to show the poor police in a better light than they appear in other information sources.

It wouldn't surprise me if the film maker was paid by Japan to produce this borderline propaganda. Sad.

Horrible Documentary In Style & Substance

[AudioFileZ · 3/10 · 12 April 2024]

I figured going in this missing person case would not parallel a domestic, or even UK, case. Immediately it was fairly frustrating to watch from early on. Lucie, a UK woman in her early twenties, came to Tokyo for a life adventure. Becoming what is called a "hostess" in the unusual Tokyo club scene certainly was that. The concept just seems dodgy and dangerous even if we're told it isn't sexually like prostitution. That may be so, but it certainly provided an excellent hunting ground for a sexual predator. I am certainly uncomfortable with this as the father of a daughter. Being told for such a massive population center the crime rate is low begs many questions when young Lucie comes up missing. All cultural differences aside, the human animal is driven in similar ways regardless, maybe more so in a traditionally male dominated society?

The film omits so much of what I have come to expect in crime docs about the missing, again, it's frustrating. I don't think these omissions are things lost in translation either. Whatever the Japanese police are finding early on is not revealed. Instead of keying on who was last believed to be with Lucie, and information given by those who worked with her in the same bar, the story focuses on the arrival of Lucie's father. He clashes with the locals taking the story to the press who he tells his youngest daughter are the people who will find Lucie. I take it he has little respect for how Tokyo's finest are moving. There is definitely a disconnect between the two as the lack of respect seems mutual. While the father's modus operandi is of interest, it's Lucie we want to know about which the makers of this documentary never dig into.

I also should mention besides the omission of lack of insight into both victim and early investigation, the film moves at an extremely slow pace. Boring comes to mind. It never pulls the viewer in as such. One never feels a connection to the victim as such. It meanders until it finally, past the mid-point, the police find a gal from Australia who worked in the hostess profession with a chilling experience. She reveals her rape by a client raising red flags. Now, finally armed with some facts, the Tokyo police go more into a mode we're familiar with in the west. But surprisingly this is again drawn out too slowly. Lucie's story could have been told much more succinctly - and much more palpably. Where's the interviews with actual victims who survived? Even when the perpetrator's real name is known, we won't know much about him. A frustrating feeling seems to be the only constant watching this.

I've read many peoples comments about this case as it did make the rounds on the "podcast circuit". I'd have to say just about any of these gave more of the down and dirty grit about Lucie's abduction and murder than this long-winded and un-focused telling. The final irritation is how much was left out about the victim (mainly), the actions of the father beyond the press, and the perpetrator himself. Too add insult, though convicted for life of multiple rapes, the perpetrator escapes being convicted of the actual murder of Lucie which seems to go unanswered as to why he escaped, possibly, his worst crime. The absent murder conviction, though no fault of the film, deserves an explanation as to why which is not properly explored at all. Sorry, but I can only give this production low marks and no recommendation.