The Wig

The premise of The Wig (Gabal, 2005) is a little like the Hell Toupee segment of The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror IX episode. There's nothing about an execution or a hair transplant but a prologue shows a wig being made and a sewing machine needle going through the machinist's finger, covering the hairpiece in blood.  At this point you already know it's not going to go well.
 
The story follows Su-Hyeon, a patient who is being discharged from hospital following lengthy cancer treatment, into the care of her sister, Ji-Hyeon.  As Su-Hyeon has lost all her hair due to the chemotherapy, her sister bought a wig to boost her self esteem enabling her to live as normal a life as possible.  Su-Hyeon becomes extremely attached to the wig, wearing it to go to sleep and going out to get photographs taken of her looking happy and healthy. Her doctor is amazed that she is so well but he doesn't know that she is not taking her medication, hiding her tablets under the bed and deceiving everyone.
 

When Su-Hyeon becomes more outgoing and even sexually aggressive, Ji-Hyeon begins to suspect that the wig is cursed and controlling her sister.
 
The film debut by Shin-yeon Won, who was also one of the writers, The Wig tries to be one of those films that starts off slowly and builds to an unforgettable climax, but there are so many possible explanations for Su-Hyeon's behaviour introduced at the end that it just muddies the water and spoils the end.  The film isn't as tense as I'd have liked but it is interspersed with some neatly constructed and fairly well executed jumps but they don't appear often enough or with enough purpose to keep you on edge.
 
There are loads of good horror films that have come from Korea, but this isn't one of them. There is some good stuff but The Wig can't get away from the shadow of Hell Toupee, which was more inventive, bloodier and scarier!
 

The Disc

 
The Picture
A very nicely shot film is given a transfer up to the standard of the other Tartan Asia Extreme releases with reasonably good definition and clarity in the darker scenes.  There are a couple of sequences that have some blood and gore and these are done very well, one with an uncomfortable degree of plausibility!
 
The Sound
The disc comes with Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 stereo and both are clear with good separation though the surround option obviously has the edge when it comes to the more intense scenes and presenting the score. 
 
The subtitles, at least as far as I can remember, are error free and easy to follow.
 
Final Thoughts
Korean cinema can be sublime, drawing on the still unresolved conflict between North and South with such films as Brotherhood, R-point and JSA.  There are some superb horror films too, with A Tale of Two Sisters as the standard bearer so anything from that peninsular really has a high standard to live up to.  The Wig doesn't reach the hights of the best of Korean cinema but has its moments and shows that Shin-yeon Won knows how to create and develop an interesting project.