ACACIA

Mi-sook (Hye-jin Shim, PARADISE LOST) is a lecturer who, when not busy judging her students' artwork, likes to knit and/or sit around being incredibly pensive. Her doctor husband Do-il (Jin-geun Kim, SCARLET LETTER) is just as distracted and broody, in his own way.

It transpires that the reason for the couple's moping is they believe they are unable to conceive.

After much consternation (mainly by the wife), the couple decide to adopt a young boy.

Initially thrilled with their new acquisition, Jin-seong (newcomer Oh-bin Mun), the foster parents are intrigued by his fascination with drawing pictures of an acacia tree outside the family home. Jin-seong, it seems, believes the tree to be the reincarnation of his dead mother. Hmm.

All seems well - if a little odd at times but for the most part terminally dull - in the household. Until, that is, Mi-sook discovers she has fallen pregnant.

It's at this point that Jin-seong feels like he is about to be pushed out of his new family, and becomes odder and odder. Things culminate on a rainy night when Jin-seong runs away - signalling just the beginning of the pregnant couple's worries ...

Nicely shot with a flair for dark, atmosphere-drenched visuals, ACACIA is nothing if not beautiful to look at. Writer/director Ki-Hyung Park (SECRET TEARS; WHISPERING CORRIDORS) obviously has a keen eye for eerie ambience.

But, unfortunately, he needs a masterclass in how to pace a film. Because, as luscious and ocassionally creepy as ACACIA is, it's also boring beyond words at times.

Sure, it's a trend in Asian horror to move things along at a leisurely pace, but ACACIA pads itself out unnecessarily with far too many scenes of either Mi-sook sat looking into space thinking, or with "scary" shots of the tree's branches blowing in the wind and rain.

And, bizarrely, when things do start to happen (about an hour into the film!), the action seems to contrast severely with the moribund pacing that has preceded it. Which makes for an awkward, unsatisfying viewing experience.

Korean genre films are of major interest at the moment, but ACACIA - despite a beautiful look about it and some strong performances - does not offer enough to compete with it's many rivals from the scene.

Tartan's disc presents the film in 2.30:1 and is anamorphically enhanced for 16x9 TV sets. Correctly framed and generally pleasing, there did however appear to be a little colour bleeding evident. Not the sharpest of transfers then, but highly watchable nevertheless.

The audio is available in three variants: Korean 2.0, 5.1 and 5.1 DTS. The DTS track is the best of the three, with a nice heavy bass sound and clear, well-balanced mix.

Removable subtitles are easy to read and, from what I noticed, free from typos.

A static menu page allows access to the main feature via 17 chapters.

In terms of extras, the back cover makes it all sound rather impressive. Alas, the features listed are all too short.

First is an interview with Park, who chats amiably about his little ghost story - for all of 5 minutes!

Cast interviews will not take up longer than another 5 minutes of your time, and you get just as little from two featurettes: THE WORLD IN THE MOVIE and ACTION AND CUT (very little dialogue in these two features - it's basically behind-the-scenes footage).

Hell, the theatrical trailer clocks in at 2 minutes and winds up being one of the disc's most substantial extras!

It's a shame, too, that Tartan have not included the director's audio commentary track which features on their American release of the film.

Still, then I'd have had to sit through the main feature again!

By no means a terrible film, ACACIA looks great and has atmosphere to spare. The concept is a fairly creepy one in itself, although the denoument was unfulfilling. The avid fans of Korean horror films will no doubt find this is worth a look.

But they may wish to opt for the R1 edition, to hear Park's commentary ...!

Review by Stuart Willis