Gau min

I found this movie to be very entertaining with lots of wonderful surprises. There were lots of unexpected and entertaining moments in this film. This film deals very well with themes of friendship, mystery and love. The ending was very touching and unexpected. Though the action may not be as good as some of the Jacky Chan movies, this movie has a great storyline. The cinematography of the film was well made. The acting was extremely fantastic, especially the acting of Karena Lam. This movie has wonderful mystery elements as well. This movie even contains some horror elements in it though it was supposed to be a physcological thriller, there were some jumpy scenes. However, there are still some minor flaws in this film. I thought the middle portion of this film where the relationship of the two girls were being bulid up was quite draggy. It would be good if they have shorten that up a bit. This movie contains a lot of action, and well paced overall. This movie is a rather original one because it deals with kidneys. This movie is highly recommended. What I actually like most about this movie is the ending. The ending was very well done due to the built up of the film. The ending was though, predictable, a very touching ending indeed. The ending for this movie is very satisfying for me unlike the one in diary. The ending shows a great relationship between the main characters. A lot of credit was given to the ending for me. Hence, I will give this movie a high score of 9/10.

KOMA (dir. Chi-Leung Law -- 2005) starts off with a classic urban legend of a person waking up in a ice filled bath tub with an organ surgically removed. As the movie progresses, however, the audience is lead into a carefully crafted suspense thriller, reminiscent of Hitchcock and De Palma.

The protagonist is a wealthy woman, Chi Ching (Angelica Lee - The Eye), who is suffering from renal failure, and is waiting for a kidney donation. Unfortunately, Ching has a rare blood type making a match difficult. She eventually befriends a woman, Suen Ling (Kar Yan "Karena" Lam - Heroic Duo), who is jealous of Ching's wealth and love life, and has several dark secrets, none of which I will give away at this time. All this is happening while a serial killer is going around stealing kidneys from woman.

KOMA has one twist after another without falling into the cliché of coincidence. Every twist in the movie occurs because of the choices each character makes rather than due to outside forces, culminating in a great twist ending.

Although shot in a style that is very reminiscent of DePalma, the themes are very "Asian", especially the friendship that builds between Ching and Ling. I don't really understand the "We'll-be- friends/sisters-forever" type themes rampant in Asian films centered around Asian woman. Seems childish to me. Perhaps something is lost in the translation. Perhaps it's because I'm just a guy. Maybe both? The screenwriter is a woman by the way: Susan Chan. She also wrote the script for Jackie Chan's Who Am I?

The other downside of the film is that I don't know why it's called KOMA.

It is, however, refreshing to see a suspense film come out of Asia that doesn't revolve around killer Harajuku girls, or ghosts coming out of a television set. It's fairly impressive for an Asian suspense film.

The films is rated "R" for brief nudity, violence and gore (blood).

Great suspense, story and cinematography, but very poor on dialog.

A tense psychological thriller with horror overtones, this film stars Lee Sinje as Ching, a successful woman with kidney problems and Karena Lam as Ling, a healthy lady who resents Ching because she is successful. Ching is dating Wai and, it turns out since they can't be intimate due to Ching's problem, Wai is cheating on her with Ling. If that was all there was to it, it would be enough, but the film is also about someone who cuts kidneys out of people so they can be sold on the black market. Ching thinks Ling is behind it. However, before Ching leans about Wai and Ling, she tries to befriend Ling, since both of them are kind of lonely. The pairing of Ms. Lee and Ms. Lam is superb. Any scene they are in together elevates the film. I think the fact that they became friends during the production (they both said so on the Making Of featurette on the DVD) makes their acting together much more natural and interesting. Ms. Lee has become a very good actress over time and she gets to stretch a bit, gasping in terror and surmising the goings on (or, think she has) admirably. Likewise, Ms. Lam is very good. The other carriers are minor, this is Sinje and Karena's film. I recommend it to anyone who likes tense thrillers. Since its about the cutting out of kidneys, it can get bloody, but its not really a horror film, so that makes it better. I'd like to see these two ladies reunite for another film. They work very well together. Watch this.

Traditionally, Asian films have been sticking more to the classic horror styles and elements. What I'm saying is that in general, they are deeper, more frightening, and overall much better than American horror films. But I found something odd about "Koma." It seemed to be a combination of a slasher film, a psychological horror film, and a family drama. True, this has worked before, in much better films such as "The Silence of the Lambs", but there is something different about "Koma." It almost seems as if the filmmakers wanted to make an "American slasher flick" rather than an "Asian horror film", and to be blunt, they found something in-between.

It is hard not to notice some American influence in the film. There are several shots ripped straight out of "Fight Club" and "The Evil Dead", and the musical score is taken directly from M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" (Though it is a computerized version of the music, not the original studio recording), with only minimal original music.

But still, it manages to tell a rather absorbing (If not genre-confused) story about friendship, betrayal, and redemption, all revolving around the idea of kidney-theft. (Yum!) Unfortunately, the movie is only 88 minutes long, and all of the interesting ideas are condensed into lesser versions of what they could be. Perhaps if the movie was longer, and took more time to explore it's characters and stories, it would have been better. Hey, it might have even become a modern classic... But because of uneven direction (Zooming cameras and quick cutting in the beginning become long, steady shots as the movie progresses) and a compressed story, what we get is marginal.

Sure it is memorable, but that is only because of it's odd vagueness in what it wants to be, transforming it into a mish-mash "referential" horror film. Overall, even though it is only "pretty good", and there are much better films out there, but be sure to at least give this one a shot, you might like it.

"Koma" is a wonderful thriller that is as intense as they come.The two leading ladies are not only stunningly beautiful,but extremely talented as well.Karena Lam of "Inner Senses" fame stars as Ling,a young woman who may be the kidney thief.Angelica Lee plays Ching,a frail woman who suffers from renal failure.She becomes a witness of kidney stealing and Ling may be involved into it.It quickly turns out that Ling had an affair with Wai,Ching's boyfriend.Ling gets cleared of the kidney thefts by the police and she starts to harass Ling."Koma" is filled with enough surprising twists to satisfy fans of suspenseful mysteries.The direction by Law Chi-Leung is flawless,the cinematography is astounding and the script is fresh and original.The film is stylish and offers plenty of mood and nail-biting tension,so I wasn't disappointed.Give it a look.10 out of 10.