What’s this? A wig that will make you look and act just like all those other scary Asian horror girls? My word, is no one safe?
Su-Hyeon (Chae Min-seo) is terminally ill with leukaemia, her treatment has not only affected her appearance, particularly hair loss, but also seriously deflated her outlook on life. Her sister Ji-Hyeon (Yu Seon) decides she’d be better off recuperating at home, buying her a wig to make her feel normal. Ji-Hyeon herself was involved in a tragic accident that left her mute and put an end to her marriage to Ki-Seok, at least, that’s what she thought.
Before too long Su-Hyeon is exhibiting far more than simply a new lease on life thanks to her new wig. Her behaviour is becoming increasingly strange, almost menacing, even hitting on Ji’s ex. Ji-Hyeon starts to understand there’s a lot more to her gift than meets the eye, realising that the wig seems possessed, but if she’s going to save her sister, she’ll need to discover by whom, and what they want. The truth is closer to home than she’d expect…
You have to hand it to Korean filmmakers like director Won Shin-yeon (Seven Days) – on his debut feature he takes an utterly preposterous pretence, and makes a damn good show of it! The Wig manages to draw on all the familiar Asian horror motifs – scary long hair, the atmospheric, often grisly bone-crunching soundtrack, the (pseudo) subliminal creepy reflections and corner-of-the-eye glimpses – yet still find it’s own space within these now over familiar themes.
True, Shin-yeon occasionally overplays those glimpses and reflections, lingering where a more subliminal, ‘did I see what I thought I saw’ approach proves more effective. However, his handling of Ji-Hyeon’s accident is pure gold. It’s a fantastic combination of a tunnel, a crashed lorry carrying a load of thin spiky metal poles and one hell of agonising (though much shorter than it feels) wait as the car immediately behind Ji-Hyeon seals her fate.
Shin-yeon is able abetted by his leading ladies, Yu Seon and Chae Min-seo, who turn in fine, believable performances - even despite the situations. It allows him to convincingly play off an underlying sibling rivalry between the sisters, much like A Tale Of Two Sisters or Cello, without actually having to make too much out of it. It just relies more on that implication that it is there. (And let’s face it, it pretty much always is between siblings in some form or another.)
Sadly, it also relies a little too much on implication in the final real to fully explain itself – is the real killer a possessed Su-Hyeon or has Ji-Hyeon lost her grip on reality. The resolution tugs on sentimentalising the love/hate relationship between the sisters too much to give the audience a truly satisfying answer.
But who really demands that from horror films anyway? Sure, this isn’t particularly groundbreaking but is, mostly, quite enjoyable – yet another solid horror from South Korea that puts much of Japan’s to shame, and it got there long before Exte: Hair Extensions too!
DVD details
Distributor: Tartan Asia Extreme (UK)
A good transfer, but little extras.
