The Missing Star on AllMovie

One man's work ethic and sense of personal responsibility sends him on a great journey in this drama from filmmaker Gianni Amelio. Vincenzo (Sergio Castellitto) has devoted most of his adult life to working in a steel mill, where he looks after the machines and sees that they're in good repair. One day, Vincenzo gets the news that the mill is going out of business and the equipment has been sold to a concern in China. While Vincenzo is upset about the loss of his job, before long something greater is weighing on his mind -- one of the machines sold to the Chinese has a defect that led to the death of Vincenzo's co-workers years before, and he's convinced if he doesn't do some preventative maintenance on the equipment, another worker could be killed. Determined to prevent a needless fatality, Vincenzo flies to China and sets out to find the faulty machine, with the help of Liu Hua (Tai Ling), a young woman serving as his interpreter. La Stella Che Non C'e (aka The Missing Star) was screened in competition as part of the 2006 Venice Film Festival.