Wasabi
Well, without a doubt, “Wasabi” will not be on that list. According to Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes, the movie did very badly with critics and its Imdb score is so low that I wasn’t sure whether I still wanted to see the film. Strangely enough, the reviews on Imdb all sing its praises. What’s going on here?
All in all, it’s a pure comedy/action film with a pinch of satire thrown in. If you see the film because you expect something like “Leon” because of the Luc Besson/Jean Reno combination, then you’d be sorely disappointed. It’s a fun film (though apparently to some people in this world, fun is not enough to make a film interesting) without much real emotional drama. At the same time it’s packed with clichés which are so bad it’s good. Sometimes I even felt like I was watching a period film because the over-the-top-crazy style just looked so hilariously dated. Even the stereotypical view of Japanese youth is so outdated that it was a delight to see. Maybe this type of in-your-face humor is too ‘French’ to enjoy for some, but it’s certainly enjoyable to me.
The only thing I could truly criticize about the film is the long exposition in France. If this is a French cop in Japan movie, I would like said French cop to be in Japan within the first 10 minutes thankyouplease. The scene with the French girlfriend was totally not necessary and only added unwanted drama. The woman never appears in the film anymore anyways. The film is only roughly 1 1/2 hours long, there is not all that much time to waste. The way the film is written, it takes quite awhile to even see Yumi, and when the viewer get accustomed to her, some more screentime and development would have been nice.
Speaking of which! Ryoko Hirosue, seriously? I literally exclaimed WTF when I saw that it was the girl from “Okuribito”, ahahaha. She is an absolutely terrible actress, but when the movie progressed I also realized that she is perfect for this role. Her multitude of cute facial expressions is quite unique – her mouth is definitely her biggest asset (she shares that with Tomomi Itano and Jessica Paré, even though the charm of the latter works completely differently).
I would most likely write about this film differently if I got paid to write reviews within some other medium than my personal blog (the above paragraph certainly would not be in there, ahaha), but this is a personal blog, and personally, “Wasabi” is right up my alley. To me, Jean Reno’s wasabi eating scene is almost as memorable as RoboCop’s “You have 10 seconds to comply”. (Oh yeah, I still have to blog about that one!)