Wasabi
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.44 You Save: $5.51 (55%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.92 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Wasabi
Movie Review: Great Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
An excellent combination of comedy and action,
Jean Reno is great in this film
Movie Review: Tough Cop Jean Reno Goes to Japan, and Becomes a Dad
Summary: 3 Stars
Wasabi is a very popular green-colored Japanese condiment served with sushi or sashimi, and those who love Japanese food must know its pungent taste. The film takes its title from this wasabi paste (which Jean Reno actually tastes in this film), suggesting the content is sharp and spicy.Jean Reno is a marverick French cop Hubert, whose way of arresting the criminals are so outrageous that he is suspended from the job by the disgruntled police chief. But when a detective like him uses a weapon like fists faster than Jackie Chan's, and golf clubs, who can really hate him? And, hey, he seems to be having a dinner tonight with no other than ever gorgeous ex-Bond girl Carole Bouquet (who appears as a cameo), Hubert has nothing to complain of.
But he left a very bitter memory in Japan, which he could never shake off. And Hubert receives a ring from a lawyer telling him that his former Japanese girl-friend is dead. But the news do not end here; it turns out that she left a daughter Yumi, and appointed Hubert as her guardian in her will. Then Hubert flies to Japan, meets his daughter without telling the truth, but soon he finds that Japanese yakuza gangsters are aiming at Yumi for the unknown reasons.
OK. The script of Luc Besson (who also produced through his film company Europa) is as thin as you can imagine, and the tone of the film is very light. There are many actions (including that of using games and ... er ... golf balls), but the charm of the film largely comes from understated humor of Jean Reno as laconic Hubert. He is not as cool as the assassin in "The Professional" (aka "Leon"); his relations with Yumi is not as convincing as the one with Natalie Portman. Still, the ride goes pleasantly. The film is good as pure entertainment.
Some informantion about the production. Besson obviously made "Wasabi" in French and Japanese film market in mind, and he decided to use fully the potentials. So, French actor Jean Reno is called in, who is very popular in Japan (far more popular in Japan than in USA or UK, I can say) while Japanese popular actress Ryoko Hiroshue is cast as Yumi as his daughter. The director is Gerard Krawczyk, whose previous action-comedy "TAXI 2" was a huge hit in France (more than 10 millions came to the theatre in France, where the population is much smaller than in USA). So, you may call "Wasabi" a unashamed result of market research, or "product." But it is defenitely better to see good product than to watch awful art, isn't it?
The film is mostly shot in Japan. You can watch briefly a temple of Kyoto (Kiyomizu Temple) and the streets of Tokyo, and will have a glimpse (just a glimpse) of how teenagers are having fun in this city (such as "game center" as we call it in downtown of Shibuya) though the film is fast enough not to indulge in showing these scenes. The film's location is not as exotic as the title implies, and its camera always focuses on the two leads, both of whom are great. I don't tell you much about super-cool Reno except that he is as good as before, and he shouldn't have been in "Rollerball." About Hirosue, you may feel that her costumes and behaviors are too spanky for a Japanese girl. In fact, some of her costumes, I admit, look too cartoon-ish, directly from Powerpuff Girls, but they are all intentional. And as a teacher in college in Japan, I can tell that her dresses are exaggerated, but not so exceptional in downtown Tokyo. And her frequent use of cell phone is nothing unusual among Japanese teenage girls.
"Wasabi" is too light-weight, it is true, but it gives fun certainly. Just don't think. Enjoy yourself and that's all you have to do.
Movie Review: uneven film with a superb Reno performance
Summary: 3 Stars
Wasabi is a high-spirited French action comedy with a Japanese name. This Luc Besson production stars Jean Reno in a wonderful performance as a tough-guy French cop who is as quick to use his tongue as his overeager fists. One day, out of the blue, Detective Fiorentino discovers that he has a 19 year-old daughter by a Japanese woman who left him almost 20 years ago, breaking his heart in the process. The girl, Yumi, turns out to be an orange-haired free spirit who hates cops and has been led to believe that her father raped her mother. Much of the film is spent with Hubert and Yumi getting to know one another, as they uncover secrets about her mothers past that seem to have made the young woman the target of some rather unsavory characters.The plot is the least of the matter in this film. As directed by Gerard Krawczyk, Wasabi is really all about style. Bessons screenplay is fitfully amusing, doling out cleverness and cutesyness in roughly equal measure. Cinematographer Gerard Sterin brings out the colorful richness of the urban Japanese landscape and editor Yanne Herve doesnt linger longer on the jokes and sight gags than is absolutely necessary. These elements help to compensate for the somewhat desperate air that afflicts the screenplay from time to time.
The prime asset of Wasabi is Jean Renos performance. Reno perfectly mines the comic potential inherent in the material through the tone of weary cynicism and superiority to all around him that he conveys throughout. As an actor who has played this type of rogue-cop character many times in his career, Reno obviously relishes this opportunity for a little good-natured self-ribbing. And he does a splendid job.
Wasabi is little more than a piffle when all is said and done, but Reno makes it worth seeing.
Movie Review: Not too intense, enjoyable, funny, action-packed
Summary: 3 Stars
Essentially it's a story about a man (Jean Reno) called Hubert. He has no life other than his cop life. He has a tendency to proceed about investigations in a rather violent manner (he actually punches anyone, good guy or bad guy, who gets in the way or interupts him). The chief puts him on leave for 2 months for his violent behavious. Then he gets a phone call from a lawyer telling him that his lover, Miko, has died. The whole movie is about the mystery Miko leaves after her death. Along the way, he manages to find out that he has actually fathered a Japanese daughter (with Miko) called Yumi. This movie can be 'analysing material', but not as itself. This is because Jean Reno has this history of playing men who have fighting and shooting as their job description, e.g. The Cleaner in Luc Besson's Nikita; The Professional. So Jean Reno actually brings his screen experiences on board the show. Unless you happen to be watching him act for the first time, it is quite hard to detach yourself from his film pressence.
The French and Japanese mix is interesting enough. But Japanese culture is not really presented realistically here. Sure, the surface materialistic youth culture carries across, but no more than this. Yumi's plaintive cries for her papa are touching, but shallow. She also cries a whole lot.
The dialogue is witty. The camera angles are nice, especially when Yumi sticks her legs up in the lawyer's office. It's a great movie, not too intense, enjoyable, funny, action packed. Would I buy the DVD? Probably not. I do not think it bears rewatching.
Movie Review: Another Besson action-comedy
Summary: 3 Stars
This story of French cop, Hubert (Jean Reno), who travels to Japan following the death of his former lover and discovers a 19 year-old daughter he never knew he had is not Luc Besson's finest movie (Besson wrote the script of this movie, but did not direct it), but it is entertaining enough and Reno is always worth watching. The tone of the script is very much along the lines of Besson's action-comedy, "Taxi", with elements of "Leon - the Professional" thrown in. This film does not take itself too seriously and there are some fun action set-pieces along the way (the fight scene at the golf range is particularly notable), although the film could have been improved by an increase in the number of these action scenes. Overall, I see this film as Besson-light (much like "Bandidas"). The comedy isn't as fine-tuned as Besson's best comedies and the action isn't up to the same standard as his best action films, but it is still better than a lot of the action-comedies that are around and worth the price of purchase.