Reviewed On: 04/29/2008 By
Pazuzu Iscariot
From
South Korea comes the
dark and disturbing Acacia, described as a "twisted take on infertility" the movie revolves around a happily married couple who cannot conceive. They decide to adopt a young boy named Jin-sung from the local orphanage. Jin-sung is a quiet and withdrawn child who is quite content to play in the garden all day under the old acacia tree. The tree hasn’t bloomed for years and seems to be dead but Jin-sung becomes very attached to the tree, he believes that his real mother died and became a tree and he loves the tree to compensate for the death of her.
Jin-sung’s new parents find it quite a struggle to look after such an introverted child and his adoptive Grandmother despises him often being rude to the boy. His only friend is the little girl from next door, Min-ji, who seems to be his only friend in the world after he fails to fit in at his new school. The couple unexpectedly fall pregnant with a child of their own and the birth of his new sibling leaves Jin-sung feeling even more alienated from his adoptive family, he runs away from home.
Although the authorities are notified of the disappearance of Jin-sung the family almost immediately try to move on and concentrate their efforts on their own child. At this point in the movie we begin to feel that we do not know the whole story of Jin-sung’s disappearance and that the family may be keeping a sinister secret.
Mysteriously the acacia tree in the garden springs back to life and begins to bloom gloriously filling the area with a thick scent with often nasty consequences to the smeller. Family members start to die in the vicinity of the tree from the pungent scent or the local wildlife. The stress of the deaths and the secrets that they are keeping turn the family against each other as they start to crack under the pressure.
Soon the family’s violent little secret is revealed which leads to more violence and a smug and vengeful satisfaction for the acacia tree.
As we have come to expect from Korea this is a
dark and disturbing horror movie relying on the plot and the suspense of the situation rather that shocks and gore. Ki-hyeong Park has made a superb job of both writing and directing the movie and I found myself gripped from beginning to end and left with a feeling of horror (as any good horror movie should leave you with) when the story fell into place. This is definitely the ideal movie to watch late at night when the rain is lashing down outside. The lighting and colours are vivid and really add to the mood, I’m unsure about the significance of the red wool but I never believed that sheep hair could be so scary.
I definitely recommend this movie to fans of
Asian horror movies if you are looking for something a bit darker than the
J-Horror that we have become used to.
