With the recent explosion of remakes, and flood of original films coming to DVD in North America, the Asian horror market has seen a lot of exposure in the past few years. You could credit the American remake of Ringu (2002's The Ring) for peaking the interest in most casual (in other words, non rabid) horror fans and that in turn has given people the chance to see more, harder-to-find Asian fare in the comfort of their own home. I myself can't admit to being a huge fan of Asian horror as I find the stories oftentimes too confusing, the visuals to be too similar film-to-film (I'm getting sick of evil kids with hair hanging in their faces), and a general "sameness" to them.

Due to this fact, and because I didn't really enjoy his debut feature Whispering Corridors too much, director Ki-Hyung Park's Acacia snuck in under the radar and managed to knock me off my feet with its muted sense of dread and a story that's suitably creepy and perfect for something different.

When a young couple (Hye-Jin Shim, Jin-Geun Kim) decides to adopt a child after various attempts to conceive a child haven't worked they pick an artistic six-year-old (Woo-Bin Min) and take him home. Things seem pretty normal at first, though they have a little bit of problem getting him adjusted to life with a new family and with a new name. Soon though our youngster has grown attached to a scraggly acacia tree in the backyard using it as a way to escape from his problems - and eventually becoming convinced that the spirit of his birth mother lives within the tree.

This leads to scenes of his new parents becoming concerned, and also upset, at his behavior but things get even worse when a "real" baby arrives only managing to alienate and fill the adopted son full of jealousy. It's here that the move loses a bit of the spooky edge it had been building up by having the orphaned boy running away as it removes a strong character from the movie (Min gives one of the best child performances in recent memory), however it pushes the horror elements of Acacia more to the forefront as people around the family start to turn up dead.

Park does a great job building up a mood of something being "off" within the household (and the adopted son) but he also manages to grab slices of suburban family life quite well which makes us care for the characters enough that when the death and generally insanity starts it has more impact than if they were simply throw-away characters. He also shoots the film with a good style using frequent camera movements to keep things visually interesting and he packs in some striking shots of our bare, and ominous, acacia tree. Park also stages his scenes of horror well with a great moment involving ants and a stand-off between the parents that builds to a tragic end.

Acacia covers ground not treaded often before in the genre (only 1990's The Guardian and it's killer druid tree comes to mind) and because of this and it's refreshingly believable characters it works extremely well. Throw into that a plot revelation in the finale that's both unexpected and haunting and you have this highly recommended film.

Visit Tartan Films for more info and to order. (Chris Hartley, 10/6/05)

Directed By: Ki-Hyung Park.
Written By: Ki-Hyung Park, Ki-Young Sung.

Starring: Hye-Jin Shim, Jin-Geun Kim, Woong Park, Young-Hee Lee.

Picture Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: There's a few scattered specks here and there but Tartan's transfer is a nice and clean looking one with good clarity and solid colour. It's rare that an Asian horror flick can look this good on DVD as a lot of times they seem to be too soft.

Extras: There's a trailer (plus trailers to other releases in the "Asia Extreme" line), a photo gallery, an alright "making of" featurette, and an interesting cast & crew commentary. Note that the "making of" and commentary both are in Korean with English subtitles.