Acacia

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05/19/2012 Not groundbreaking or boundary pushing, it was alright, and that's about it. Seemed to get off to a good start, but then just got a little silly. The 'twist' was neither expected nor was it terribly gripping. Not sad I watched it, but wouldn't be upset if I hadn't! See more 12/06/2010 When a married couple Choi Mi-sook (Shim Hye-jin) and Kim Do-il (Kim Jin-geun) are unable to produce offspring of their own, they decide to adopt a six-year-old boy named Lee Jin-seong (Oh-bin Mun) who has a peculiar obsession with trees and is constantly drawing them. Arriving at his new home, he is drawn to a barren acacia tree under the impression that it is his mother. Following a conflict with his foster mother, Jin-seong appears to run away and it subsequently becomes evident that there's more to the tree than meets the eye as an escalating number of bizarre incidents occur, all seeming to point back to the mysterious acacia and the missing boy. You can praise it all you like for its subtlety, but, in the long run, Acacia is nothing more than a film about an all-seeing killer tree at least twice as dull as it sounds. Actually managing to pull the creepy children card for its entire 103-minute duration, Acacia it gets old real fast and, like just about every other K-horror and J-horror flick before it, it ends with everyone either dead, insane, or both (in this case, both). I saw this movie after having heard positive things, but all I found was a by-the-numbers K-horror with precisely zero scares. See more 09/18/2010 Slow Family-Drama, but I like it See more 08/20/2010 Below average Asian horror flick that tries so hard to be scary, but fails so miserably. When a young couple adopt a young boy all kinds of weird things start to happen namely relatives start to die. The film does have it's occasional good scare moments, but it gets forgotten quickly in the sea of boringness. See more 03/14/2009 Acacia is a South Korean horror film about a Doctor and his wife seeking to adopt a child together. The wife is attracted to a little orphan boy's artistic talent (for drawing creepy looking pictures of trees), thinking he's got a high I.Q. When they get the boy home, strange things start happening. He has a strange fascination with insects and the acacia tree in their back yard. Soon, the mother gets pregnant and the couple have their own "real" child, and the adopted son gets jealous. It even seems as though he'll hurt the baby, and the couple start to discuss the real possibility of sending him back to the orphanage. He overhears this conversation though, and before running off into the night, he declares his mom is a "tree". Meanwhile, the dad, who is an ob/gyn, delivers a dead baby then rushes home. It was around the halfway mark I realized this movie wasn't very coherent, scary or even interesting. After the boy runs away, the tree grows leaves, and then there's a pointless rape scene. It's obvious the filmmakers were trying to take an artistic approach to making a horror movie, but in the end it is just about a "killer tree", and how scary can you possibly make such a thing? See more 01/16/2009 [font=Palatino Linotype][color=black][b][i][size=3]SPEEDY REVIEW[/size][/i][/b]: [size=1][color=black][b][i]SOUTH-EAST ASIA - SOUTH KOREON HORROR[/i][/b][/color][/size][/color][/font] [center][b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=1][color=#000000][img]http://www.facets.org/images/acacia.jpg[/img][/color][/size][/font][/b][/center] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][color=#000000][u]INTRO[/u][/color][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=1][color=#000000]ACACIA refers to a tree, which is sadly the whole premise in this utterly unrealistic horror film from Park-Ki-Hyeong. While Acacia has above par acting for such a low budget film, the scares employed and the build up all become routinely predictable. The atmospheric element in A Tale Of Two Sisters and to some extent the tension creates in the original Ju-On are not quite invoked well here due to the director sharing the same scare foundation as Shyamalan (plants are terrorfying).[/color][/size][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][color=#000000][u]SCRIPT[/u][/color][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=1][color=#000000]A married couple, unable to have a child of their own, decided to adopt and soon young Lee Jin-Seong is welcomed into his family, but his fascination of trees goes well beyond weird and creepy. After his name is changed by his new parents odd things keep happening and Lee Jin-Seongs' behaviour becomes more and more odd, what ensues are laughable moments in flashback, slow motion and a pretty awful finale. Hyeong has made a mistake not only by sitting in the Koreon horror template but by selecting an awful premise to this otherwise well directed mess. [color=red]7/25[/color][/color][/size][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][color=#000000][u]CHARACTERS[/u][/color][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=1][color=#000000]The child being odd is a predictable way Koreon and Japanese directors try to add to the scare. The idea that the child has seen something or knows something the parent doesn't was better done in the more stylish and original Dark Water. The irratic mother played is a common character but adds an edge to the surroundings. We know something is not right with her. While the father and the grandparents seem normal. With a little more depth than the usual horror victims, and with a little build up you do care slightly what becomes of these people, but when the finale unfolds it all seems rather careless. Its liek when your at primary school and you end a story with 'they woke up and it was all a dream'. Teachers would give you an F for that, and here they would do the same. [color=red]2/10[/color][/color][/size][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][color=#000000][u]ACTING[/u][/color][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=1][color=#000000]The acting ranges from average to slight above-par, and is often understated, unfortunately with little atmosphere to combine with, and only slight good musical scores the actors never really excel to the next band of acting sticking firmly in the same pile as a lot of their peers. As the characters themselves are humourless for most of the time with a lack of any expression its hard not to blame the performances when they require so much more power to make it more intense.[color=red] 8/15[/color][/color][/size][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][color=#000000][u]DIRECTION[/u][/color][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=1][color=#000000]This is probably Hyeongs' best feature in the film. While his pacing is out of sync a lot of the time, he does provide some interesting camera angles, instead of cutting directly to another characters face he'll zoom around. This is all well and good but the responsability lies with him alone for the horrendous story and no one else. The sloppy ending is ultimately boring and infuriating. You can't win 'em all. [color=red]9/25[/color][/color][/size][/font][/b] [font=Palatino Linotype][color=black][b][u]GENRE CONVENTIONS & ORIGINALITY[/u][/b][/color][/font] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=1][color=#000000]The film got to the premise before 'The Happening' but as Shymalans' film is amongst the worst I have ever seen it is not something to be proud of. Conventional dialogue between characters is lazy and poorly thought out. In the end there is nothing on show here that has not been done better elsewhere. [color=red]3/15[/color][/color][/size][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][color=#000000][u]SCORE[/u][/color][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=1][color=#000000]Apart from the odd sentimental and intriging score Acacia has nothing really great to rely on. Employing the spooky score just lets the audience know something is going to happen. What this film really needs are the short breaks in score that A Tale Of Two Sisters had, and the silence which created such a tense atmosphere. [color=red]5/10[/color][/color][/size][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][color=#000000][u]OUTRO[/u][/color][/font][/b] [b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=1][color=#000000]A routine, boring, uninspired horror film which is unenjoyable to watch and ultimately a rubbish waste of time. Avoid at all costs, this ones extremely rotten![/color][/size][/font][/b] [center][b][font=Palatino Linotype][color=#000000][/color][/font][/b] [/center] [center][b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=3][color=#000000]Rated (18)[/color][/size][/font][/b][/center] [center][b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=3][color=#000000]Total Running Time: 100 Mintues[/color][/size][/font][/b][/center] [center][b][font=Palatino Linotype][size=3][color=#000000]Final Score: 34/100[/color][/size][/font][/b][/center] See more Read all reviews

Acacia

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