Wasabi (2001) - film review

Hubert is a police inspector with a kind heart but an iron fist.  Although he gets results, not everyone appreciate his methods.   It is whilst thwarting a transvestite-themed bank robbery that he accidentally demolishes the son of his police chief.  Suspended from work, he is working out what do with his life when he receives phone call from a Japanese lawyer.  Miko, a Japanese woman Hubert hasn’t seen for nearly 20 years, has just died and has made him her sole beneficiary.  Arriving in Japan to attend Miko’s funeral, Hubert discovers that the dead woman has a daughter, Yumi – the product of their brief liaison.   He then finds evidence that Miko was murdered, leaving an impossibly large sum of money in her bank account…

Having collaborated on Taxi 2 (2000), director Gérard Krawczyk and producer Luc Besson joined forces once more to concoct a similar energetic spectacle of comedy action thriller.  As before, Besson provided the script – one of his better offerings, although clearly a rush job – and Jean Reno was cast as the film’s sympathetic action hero.  It’s pretty formulaic stuff – with most of the comedy comcentrated in the spoof action stunts  – but somehow Reno’s solid presence gives the film a touch of class and humanity.  The pairing of a gun-toting loner with a naïve young girl invites similarities with a previous Reno-Besson collaboration, the slick 1994 thriller Léon, albeit with far less blood and a few more laughs.

© James Travers 2006

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