COMMENTS:
Ah, where should I begin? Well, I wasn't sure what exactly to expect from the movie since I couldn't find much info on it, but I generally had an idea that I'd end up with mixed feelings. Well I was semi-right. The movie ended up just being a complete and predictable bore. It's a sad thing, coming from the same director of Whispering Corridors, which I thought was a fairly decent ghost flick. The movie started out interesting, but immediately goes into bore-mode until the last 20-or-so minutes of the film.

The story is basically about a couple that decides to adopt a young boy after failing to have a child of their own. They pick out a seemingly nice boy that they discover is a bit of a trouble-maker. A year passes and the couple discovers that the wife's pregnant. Fast-forward another year and the baby is out and about, which obviously displeases the troubled boy. After noticing a loss of attention and failed attempts of killing the child, the boy runs away from home and never seen again. This creates a downward spiral for the couple, as they start to care less and less about things, and eventually go mad, and lash out on each other.

So what the hell does the title mean? Well Acacia is apparently the tree that's in the back yard of the couple's home. When the adopted boy first moves in, the wise grandfather tells the story of rare tree and how it can grant wishes, but sadly the tree has no leaves and seems almost dead. That is of course until the boy disappears, and the tree somehow springs to life, and hell ensues soon after. The first 25 minutes of the movie is somewhat interesting with the family adjusting to their life with the boy, and gets even more interesting when the new child is born. Then after the boy runs away, it just consists of the couple slowly going crazy. That is until towards the end when the "scary" truth is revealed about what really happened. The twist at the end of the film came as no surprise to me, since I had a hunch as to what happened to the boy earlier in the film.

While watching the movie I was thinking we'd see some cool ghostly occurences happening to the couple, but we get nothing more than few images here and there and maybe an interesting death by ants. The movie really doesn't turn horror until towards the end. The rest of it is just a drama of sorts. Normally I don't mind movies that have the story and actors performances leading it, but this movie was just too damn boring. The story essentially leads nowhere, and just consisted of a lot of long and drawn-out dialogue. No scares, predictable ending, too much talking. What a waste. So why just a 5-rating? Well it had its moments here and there, and despite it being boring, it was well directed.

OVERALL:
A boring South Korean "horror" flick. Too much talking, with an incredibly slow pace. Don't bother.

REVIEW:
After collecting dust on my DVD shelf for about three weeks I finally decided to watch this film that seemed more like a drawn-out drama than a horrorfilm. Due to lack of other interesting titles to watch I decided to give this a shot anyway and that's really nothing I regret. Acacia uses the same formula as A Tale Of Two Sister but this time it also has a killer tree.... A KILLER TREE! I mean, how original isn't that. Oh I forgot The Guardian, well it's almost completely original then. Anyway it turned out to be a really good movie.

It's funny how I usually find out about Asian movies first when they come to DVD and never when they go to cinema, well except for Chakushin Ari which I've been dying to see for ages. Anyway, perhaps this is a good thing since I wouldn't be able to see them anyway and that would just make me desperate to see movies. What surprised me was that this was a really highbudget horrormovie and you can really tell by the directing aswell. The use of colours are very vibrant and the shots of the tree look almost dreamlike. I mean, this is the director behind Whispering Corridors, he has improved A LOT.

Never heard of any of these actors before though but I think they did a pretty good job. I wish that we would have rooted for them more though and the character development mightn't have been the best but they were still above average. It's nice to see that Asian horrormovies aren't always ghost horrormovies, this one really separated from the bunch so this is definitely something I can recommend even if it is a bit too long.

GORE:
A couple of scissor stabbings and some blood coughing. This is one movie that I really wanted some more gore in as it would've been a nice touch. Perhaps a higher bodycount aswell.

SOUNDTRACK:
Beautiful. Simply beautiful. It didn't impress me at first with it's standard piano music but when the violins kick in it's an unforgettable journey for your ears.

BOTTOM LINE:
Surprisingly good horrormovie from the new Asian masters of horror, South Korea. With a little more gore, a little shorter running time and a much higher bodycount this could've been close to perfection.