The dramatic thriller Koma highlights the difference between a plot twist and sheer indecisiveness. On the one hand, there's something like The Sixth Sense, whose unexpected story turns not only made it famous but also formed a logical connection with the turn of events preceding them. Koma, on the other hand, is like watching a guy mess up the punchline of a joke, then going back to the beginning again and again, changing things every time he tries to fix it.

After getting smashed at a friend's wedding reception, pretty Ching (Lee Sinje, a.k.a. Angelica Lee from The Eye) receives the shock of her life when she stumbles upon a woman bleeding to death due to someone having removed one of her kidneys. The incident hits all too close to home for Ching, for she herself has kidney troubles that have caused some strain in her relationship with her boyfriend (Andy Hui). To top it all off, after she puts the finger on Ling (Karena Lam), a woman she saw lurking around the scene of the crime, in a lineup, she learns of a connection between her beau and the mystery woman. Naturally, that throws her for another loop. But after Ling is cleared of all involvement in the kidney theft, she and Ching are forced to become reluctant friends in order to survive the wrath of the wannabe surgeon still lurking about.

Sometimes I don't know what's worse: a movie that succumbs to the "long-haired, vengeful ghost" conventions befalling so many potentially cool Asian horror films, or one that sets out to do something different but comes up with a really weak follow-through. Koma belongs in the latter category, having shifted into the right gear but spending its 88-minute running time letting its wheels spin and kick up mud in a ditch somewhere. Things start off on an eerie and effective enough note, with the opening scenes echoing the old urban legend about waking up in a tub of ice and finding that one of your kidneys has mysteriously vanished. Koma is more interesting when it's shrouded in mystery, so when the time comes for the hidden connections and various secrets to be revealed, what viewers get seems so dull and confounding, you wish the filmmakers would pull the covers back over the plot.

Director Lo Chi-Leung can never sit still long enough to help us become involved with the film as either an organ-swiping thriller or a soap operaesque drama with some missing kidneys thrown in for good measure. He's always dashing back and forth between the two genres, never introducing them to one another, so when they come together in a climax that should be more emotional than it turns out to be, the effect is more awkward than anything else. The production is  handsomely made, and the lead performances from Lam and Sinje are reasonably decent, but they hardly seem to matter when the haphazard plotting keeps viewers at such a distance. All the atmosphere in the world can't compensate for a story that doesn't make up its mind about what it wants to be or provide much in the way of effectiveness in the meantime. 

Although Koma firmly plants itself in an environment that makes it look suspenseful, the movie forgets to employ storytelling tactics to make it be suspenseful. There's a great sheen to the film, but it's populated with too many characters going through their own uninvolving dramas. Koma is like a bitter cake slathered with all the frosting the chef could find in the kitchen.

MY RATING: * 1/2 (out of ****)

(Relased by Tartan Video and rated "R" for violence and some nudity.)