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CAST & CREW
Jean Reno, Michel Muller, Ryoko Hirosue
Directed by Gerard Krawczyk
more...
SYNOPSIS
This boisterous crime-cop dramedy is written and produced by Luc Besson and stars Jean Reno. Like THE PROFESSIONAL (the 1994 Besson-Reno film), it is the story of a man with a grim, lonely life and a penchant for violence who finds redemption in a needy, spirited young girl who forces him to have heart and save her from an ugly group of thugs. more...
MPAA RATING
Not Rated, some violence
RUNTIME
1 hour, 34 minutes
RELEASE DATES
Theatrical: Sep 27, 2002
Video: Feb 11, 2003
RELEASE COMPANY
Columbia Pictures
GENRE
Action/Adventure, Foreign Films, French, Action, Comedy, Drama, Cops, Police, Mafia, Paris, France, Violence, Japan, Teenage Girls
OFFICIAL SITE
• The Official Wasabi Site
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TIDBITS
SUBMIT/EDIT ARTICLE
SUBMIT USER REVIEW
FORUM
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 "Reno himself can take credit for most of the movie's success. He's one of the few 'cool' actors who never seems aware of his own coolness."
-- Jeffrey M. Anderson, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
"Wasabi does its job colorfully and entertainingly, as long as you don't lean too hard on such niggling details as logic, legality and the laws of physics."
-- Sean Axmaker, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
"Luc Besson and Jean Reno Reunite in Wasabi."
-- Mike Bracken, MIKE BRACKEN'S HORROR FILMS
"Wasabi is one of the best times I’ve had lately enjoying a movie that has no regard for a plot."
-- David Cornelius, AMAZING COLOSSAL WEBSITE
 "A lightweight, uneven action comedy that freely mingles French, Japanese and Hollywood cultures."
-- Daniel Eagan, FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL
"May lack the pungent bite of its title, but it's an enjoyable trifle nonetheless."
-- Marshall Fine, JOURNAL NEWS
"Despite Besson's high-profile name being Wasabi's big selling point, there is no doubt that Krawczyk deserves a huge amount of the credit for the film's thoroughly winning tone."
-- Andy Klein, NEW TIMES
"Wasabi is slight fare indeed, with the entire project having the feel of something tossed off quickly (like one of Hubert's punches), but it should go down smoothly enough with popcorn."
-- Moira MacDonald, SEATTLE TIMES
"The film lapses too often into sugary sentiment and withholds delivery on the pell-mell pyrotechnics its punchy style promises."
-- Paul Malcolm, L.A. WEEKLY
"A cheerful enough but imminently forgettable rip-off of [Besson's] earlier work."
-- Mary F. Pols, CONTRA COSTA TIMES
"Manages to be somewhat well-acted, not badly art-directed and utterly unengaging no matter how hard it tries to be thrilling, touching or, yikes, uproarious."
-- Bob Strauss, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
"One minute, you think you're watching a serious actioner; the next, it's as though clips from The Pink Panther Strikes Again and/or Sailor Moon have been spliced in."
-- Tor Thorsen, REEL.COM
No review available.
-- Nicolas Lacroix, SHOWBIZZ.NET
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"Been there, done that, liked it much better the first time around - when it was called The Professional."
-- Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone, THEMOVIECHICKS.COM
"As plain and pedestrian as catsup--"
-- John Esther, PASADENA WEEKLY
"If you sometimes like to go to the movies to have fun, Wasabi is a good place to start."
-- Edward Havens, FILMJERK.COM
"... a fun little timewaster, helped especially by the cool presence of Jean Reno."
-- Anthony Leong, MEDIACIRCUS
"Arguably the best script that Besson has written in years."
-- Wade Major, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE
"Fluffy and disposible."
-- Maitland McDonagh, TV GUIDE'S MOVIE GUIDE
"Slight, but colorful and forward-moving... Wasabi has the cheeky verve and heart of a shaggy dog movie that is aiming to please its owner, nothing more, nothing less."
-- Brent Simon, ENTERTAINMENT TODAY
"A fast-paced, glitzy but extremely silly piece."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION
"Despite the title, Wasabi isn't so spicy."
-- E! ONLINE
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ROTTEN 54%
Avg. Rating: 5.2/10 |
"A silly, cross-cultural shoot-'em-up -- the sort of movie that will work for those with some time to kill."
-- Jonathan Curiel, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Dawdles and drags when it should pop; it doesn't even have the virtue of enough mindless violence to break up the tedium of all its generational bonding."
-- Manohla Dargis, LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Reno does what he can in a thankless situation, the film ricochets from humor to violence and back again, and Ryoko Hirosue makes us wonder if she is always like that."
-- Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
"[Tries] to parody a genre that's already a joke in the United States. The movie is the equivalent of French hip-hop, which also seems to play on a 10-year delay."
-- Elvis Mitchell, NEW YORK TIMES
"Don't let the subtitles fool you; the movie only proves that Hollywood no longer has a monopoly on mindless action."
-- John Monaghan, DETROIT FREE PRESS
"The movie fails to live up to the sum of its parts."
-- Judith Prescott, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"One scarcely needs the subtitles to enjoy this colorful action farce."
-- Richard Roeper, EBERT & ROEPER
"The funny thing is, I didn't mind all this contrived nonsense a bit."
-- Andrew Sarris, NEW YORK OBSERVER
"Sleek, shallow, but frequently amusing."
-- Gene Seymour, NEWSDAY
"The real charm of this trifle is the deadpan comic face of its star, Jean Reno, who resembles Sly Stallone in a hot sake half-sleep."
-- Laura Sinagra, VILLAGE VOICE
"The spaniel-eyed Jean Reno infuses Hubert with a mixture of deadpan cool, wry humor and just the measure of tenderness required to give this comic slugfest some heart."
-- Megan Turner, NEW YORK POST
"The film is a contrivance, as artificial as the video games Japanese teens play in a nightclub sequence, but it's an enjoyable one."
-- Matt Weitz, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"Like being trapped inside a huge video game, where exciting, inane images keep popping past your head and the same illogical things keep happening over and over again."
-- Michael Wilmington, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
-- Click to read the article.
-- HOUSTON CHRONICLE
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-- Click to read the article.
-- Wilson Morales, BLACKFILM.COM
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* Who are the Approved Tomatometer Critics?
* Mouse over a tomato icon for a publication's original rating. Original rating not available for every publication.
* In fairness to critics whose last name begins with a letter at the end of the alphabet, certain pages are sorted in reverse order, z-a.
* Certain "Wasabi" article data provided by the Movie Review Query Engine.
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