If you love movies, you might of heard of Luc Besson, or seen some of his films, such as Leon(Proffesional in US), Fifth Element or La Femme Nikita. Master of action cinema, in recent years he chose to concentrate on more of the producers aspects of movie business, and with his French production company, financed and produced string of international action films. Some of them were released here in US(such as Jet Li's Kiss of the Dragon, and upcoming The Transporter), and other played everywhere in the world but here(Taxi, Taxi 2, Yamakazi). Usually combining action with comedy, those films became hits worldwide,but also gathering alot of criticism for lightheaded storylines, and being mostly concentrated on action.
WASABI is one of Besson's recent projects, its joint French-Japan production. The film tells the story of tough as nails police inspector Hubert, played by Jean Reno. The guy is infamous for his brutal ways in solving crimes, but always gets the job done, and is pretty much workaholic. He spends his free time playing golf, which is a pretty much his only free time activity. While on his most recent case he dissobeys the orders from his superiors, and they force him to take a 2 months leave. Without his usual work routine, Hubert concenrates his efforts to woe his current girlfriend, but she tells him that he still have a broken heart from the love affair he had 20 years ago, and untill he gets over that, they wont be happy together. Hubert had a romance with Miko, Japanese woman, who he loved, and still loves, but one day she dissapeared without trace, and he's been sad about that ever since. Then he gets a call from Japan, and finds out that the woman he loved is dead, and she named him the only benificiary of her posessions. Huberts gets on the plane, and film's focus moves to Japan. Once he arrived, Hubert meets with the lawayer, and after reading of the will, finds out that he and his formal love, had a daughter, Yumi, he never knew about. And now he has been named a legal guardian of her, until she becomes of age(which going to happen in the 2 days). Scared of meeting with her, and telling her the truth, he decides to keep that a secret until better time, and introduces himself as her mother old friend. We also learn that Hubert, his old friend Momo, and girl's mother were working with French Secret Service back in the days, and thats where their skills come from. While visiting Funeral Home to say goodbye to Miko, he finds some traces of strange powder on her body, and other clues that there is something fishy about her death. Trusting his detective instincts, he decides to do his own investigation. After the visit to Bank, he finds out that there is a sum of 200 million dollars, sitting in the Yumi account. After lab analyses confirms that the powder is indeed a poison, he decides to find out who was behind the murder. Meanwhile, Spending quality time with his newfound daughter, he notices some guys tailing them, and learns that its Yakuza who's behind all of this and now trying to get ahold of the money hidden in the Yumi account. Now Hubert needs to protect Yumi, and also take care of this little Yakuza problem, the only way he knows how - with his fists.
Now, Few words about the production values. The film is beautifully shoot. Beautiful cinematography combined with great Japanese scenary. The film is very colorful and bright. Cool camera work and location selection. Direction, from Gerard Krawczyk (who also directed Taxi 2 for Besson's company) is very stylish and energetic.
Actor's performances were also on the spot. Jean Reno is excellent, as always. He got great screen precence and great as Hubart, both in action and comedic scenes. There is one part in the film, when visiting arcade, Yumi's Japanese friends ask Hubert to try one of the DDR machines, and its a great comedic moment seing him trying to dance. Japanese actress Ryoko Hirosue, who plays Yumi is also good, full of energy and extremely cute. They had a good screen presence together, and everything worked well.
This film is action-comedy, so dont expect a wall to wall action. But I won't say its doesn't have any action either. It has its share of fights(mostly done in comedic manner, with Hubert usually taking out his opponents with just one punch), some very cool gunplay and fun Hubert VS Yakuza fight, where he uses his hobby: golfing as his weapon. Again, Reno is great during these scenes, and they are fun to watch.
There are also alot of comedy in the film, and all of it done tastefully, and quite funny. Few words about films music. The film soundtrack is packed with some great music tracks(techno, dance, pop), both Japanese and Western. I enjoyed the films music alot, and will try to buy the soundtrack.
If you are fan of action films, and especially if you enjoy Asian cinema, I recomend you to check out this film. Its a great combination of action and comedy, and I'm sure it will leave you in the good mood when you done watching it.
Right now its available on HK DVD which it Region Free(even though the box say otherwise), and very affordable. It has excellent picture quality, awesome sound (DTS and 5.1) and good subtitle translation.
Also, Columbia will be releasing this film in the limited release in US theaters, so if you will have a chance to catch it on the big screen, I reccomend you to do so.
Just found out that there is a Canadian dvd of it, which is Region 1. I dont know what it has any extras, or the quality. But if anyone interested, they can look it up
Nice review Despair. When I visited Hong Kong last March, there were posters everywhere for this movie. I also came across some bootleggers selling the movie on VCD format in the streets. My dad picked up a couple of movies from them and 2/3rd of them were corrupted/unplayable. Ah well, there were no subtitles and my french isn't that good so I wouldn't have understood anyway...
Anyway, I was really interested in this movie and I was sorta worried that it wouldn't have any action. It's nice to hear that there's a good amount in it. For some reason, I always called Jean Reno "Luc Besson" because he's in every LB movie. I should stop doing that. Jean Reno rules.
The Darkest Soul
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