Wasabi
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Movie Reviews of Wasabi
Movie Review: great movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I have seen this movie twice and it is a very funny movie. I am a big fan of Jean Reno I have seen almost every movie he has stared in and every movie of his is great. I highly recommend this film to anyone that likes action and humor combined.Movie Review: Funny, Fast, and Good
Summary: 5 Stars
Women should really try to watch this so that they can understand what and how to love a broken man. Men should watch this to laugh and enjoy the action.Movie Review: His best since The Big Blue
Summary: 5 Stars
rented it it todayMovie Review: Classic Role, Weak Plot
Summary: 4 Stars
`Wasabi', a film directed by Gerard Krawczyk and more importantly written by Luc Besson (`The Professional', `The Fifth Element', `La Femme Nikita') and starring Jean Reno (of many of the same films), is a French take on the American Dirty Harry / Axel Foley type of loose cannon policeman played by Jean Reno in place of Eastwood and Murphy. This may be a bit odd as Reno is much less the hot Murphy figure as he is the French equivalent of the modern Noir hero as played by Harvey Keitel. In fact, Reno and Keitel played exactly the same role in `La Femme Nikita' and the less successful American remake.
The unfortunate thing is that while the plots of `Dirty Harry' and `Beverly Hills Cop' are an interesting framework on which the rogue cop struts his stuff, the plot of `Wasabi' is almost inconsequential. That doesn't mean the film is not fun to watch, as Reno and his two primary supporting characters do great jobs of bulking up their characters to fill out the absence of a meaningful plot.
The story, briefly, is based on Reno's character, Hubert Fiorentini, a Paris policeman and former French intelligence agent in Tokyo is summoned to Tokyo because he is the only beneficiary in the will of a Japanese girlfriend who jilted him 19 years earlier when they both worked in the French embassy in Tokyo, Reno as an intelligence operative and girlfriend as a crypographer.
In Tokyo, we meet the second of the three main characters, an operative colleague of Fiorentini both were France's covert strongarms in Tokyo. Soon, when Hubert sees the lawyer probating the will, we meet the third major character, the 19 year old daughter of the Japanese code breaker and our Hubert. Daughter does not know Hubert is her father, and threatens to kill her father when she meets him. Daughter is a chip off the old Nikita character block, slightly younger, less larcenous, and certainly less dopy, but just as manic and irresponsible.
The big surprise which drives what is taken for a plot in the movie is when Hubert discovers that dead girlfriend / mother has $200,000,000 in her Japanese bank accounts in trust for soon to be legally adult daughter. It seems, however,that this money was somehow taken from a Japanese gangster who does a rather poor imitation of Italian-American gangsters as depicted by directors far less talented or imaginative than Martin Scorsese or Frances Coppela. With a combination of the fact that our Nippon scarface (yes, he has prominent scars on his face) has relatively inept bodyguards and the fact that our hero Hubert is something of especially adept at fanciful means of incapacitating bad guys, Hubert is able to keep himself and daughter out of scarface's clutches for most of Act II.
In the last act, with the help of some heavy duty hardware from the French Tokyo cold war stash of weapons and Hubert's Tokyo wingman, Hubert ultimately teletransfers the money out of the bad guys' clutches and take down the whole gang with help from his long dormant network of Tokyo operatives.
The fact that it is so much fun to write this review is a sure sign that the movie is fun to watch, at least once. The problem is whether or not the DVD is worth buying. The thin plot never explains how dead girlfriend got the 200 million bucks from scarface or exactly how girlfriend died or what connection a hidden notebook had to the case or even why the seeming larceny occurred many years ago, as 4/5 of the loot was interest, which could only have accrued over many years.
The point of the title is based on no more than a sight gag of Reno's character eating gobs of undiluted Wasabi with no sigh that he senses the very high heat in this Japanese horseradish. The point is made when faithful henchman eats a small portion himself and is rewarded with a scorched mouth which he demonstrates clearly with mumbles and large amounts of drinking water.
Very few comedies wear well after multiple viewings. Aside from Shakespeare's comedies and Woody Allen movies, there are very few I consider worth owning, and this is not one of them, although I sincerely enjoyed the experience of watching it the first time, as I am something of a Jean Reno fan.
Note that like most French movies, watching with the original French soundtrack and English subtitles is superior to watching the dubbed English, as you always loose something in the inflections of the dubbed speech. And, the two translations are different, and based on my rudimentary High School French, I think the subtitled translation is better.
Movie Review: For those who take their action raw.
Summary: 4 Stars
I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about films, but in purchasing Wasabi (2001), I had no prior knowledge about the movie other than it was written by Luc Besson and starred Jean Reno, who were both involved in Nikita (1990) and The Professional (1994), two wonderful films worth any action movie fan's time. Given the talent involved in Wasabi, I thought it would be a pretty worth looking into, and I wasn't disappointed.Reno stars a Hubert, a retired secret government operative who is now a no nonsense French cop who seems to follow the guidelines within the Dirty Harry Law Enforcement Manual, that's to say his methods, while extreme, get results. The films dives headfirst into the action as we see Hubert single-handedly bust up a transvestite bank robbery ring. While Hubert is very good at what he does, his superior notes that that is all he does, as Hubert has no life. That, along with pressures from a local politician with regards to Hubert's' old school tactics, forces Hubert's boss to put him on extended vacation, with a recommendation that he basically get a life.
Soon Hubert gets word that a Japanese woman he once loved but who left him almost 20 years ago to which he still carried a torch for, has recently passed, and she has named him in her will. He travels from France to Japan to witness the reading of the will, and see his long, lost love, but gets more than he bargained for as he learns the woman had a daughter, Hubert's daughter. Not only that, but the woman has also left a mystery behind not only in why she left him in the first place, but why now the Yakuza is after the daughter. Hubert must learn his now deceased lover's involvement with the Yakuza, protect himself and his daughter, named Yumi, and deal with the fact that he's an instant father, and the complications of having to try and relate to a 19 year old girl.
Wasabi mixes a very genuine blend of action, comedy, and a pinch of drama pretty successfully. The action is pretty steady throughout, and is more of the comic book variety, like what you might see in a Jackie Chan film. The comedy comes mostly in the form of Hubert's contact in Japan, a fellow Frenchman named Momo, whom Hubert worked with many years ago when he was a government operative. Momo reminded me of a chubbier version of Rob Schneider, except a bit funnier. The drama, while present but not over done, comes in the form of Hubert and Yumi trying to come to terms with the fact that they are now all they have. While the combination of these three elements doesn't allow for a whole lot of substance within the story, that mattered little as this was just a fun, exciting ride I enjoyed all the way to the end. Certainly one who has seen the Besson/Reno film The Professional will notice similarities, but more or less these two films relate superficially. What's really interesting is how much this French-made film looks like an American actioneer.
The quality of the wide screen picture here looks great, and the audio is really excellent. Keep in mind the dialog is in French, with English subtitles available, but there is also a dubbed English track, for those of you who don't care to read while watching a film. I, myself, preferred to allow the original voices to come out, while reading the translation below. The dubbed voices sound a bit weird at times, especially since I am fairly familiar with how Jean Reno's voice sounds like, and the guy hired to dub him is way off. As far as extras go, there are some theatrical trailers available, for this film, and Formula 51 (2001), Swept Away (2002), and Trapped (2002). While Wasabi really isn't a cinematic feast, it's definitely a satisfying appetizer, and sometimes that's all you need.
Cookieman108