GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
58 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
xx New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
47 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Wasabi
TriStar Pictures

Wasabi reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 53 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.5 out of 10
based on 15 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for some violence

Starring Jean Reno, Ryoko Hirosue, Michel Muller, Carole Bouquet, Ludovic Berthillot, Yan Epstein, Michel Scourneau, and Christian Sinniger

A French police inspector (Reno) with a tender heart and a tough manner pursues the killer of an old flame in Tokyo.


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Luc Besson  
DIRECTED BY: GĂ©rard Krawczyk  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: February 11, 2003 
Video: February 11, 2003 
Theatrical: September 27, 2002 
RUNNING TIME: 94 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: France / Japan 
LANGUAGE(S): French and Japanese (with English subtitles) 

Original French title "Wasabi: La Petite Moutarde Qui Monte au Nez"

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

80
New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein
This nearly perfect confection never takes its action more seriously than its comedy.
75
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Like a Hollywood buddy-cop movie gone through a multi-culti blender. It holds up a funhouse mirror to that familiar scenario in which a maverick cop breaks the rules.
Read Full Review
75
New York Post Megan Lehmann
The spaniel-eyed Jean Reno ("Ronin") infuses Hubert with a mixture of deadpan cool, wry humor and just the measure of tenderness required to give this comic slugfest some heart.
Read Full Review
70
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Enjoyable action comedy from the Clint Eastwood mold, though the comic elements are more fun than the action.
Read Full Review
60
LA Weekly Paul Malcolm
The film lapses too often into sugary sentiment and withholds delivery on the pell-mell pyrotechnics its punchy style promises.
Read Full Review
60
The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Offers watchable light entertainment, even though the prospect of the most respected national cinema indulging clunky cop-movie stereotypes is, if not scandalous, then at least disappointing.
Read Full Review
60
Village Voice Laura Sinagra
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.
Read Full Review
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
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.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Lisa Nesselson
An acceptably entertaining but borderline bland vehicle for Jean Reno.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel
A silly, cross-cultural shoot-'em-up -- the sort of movie that will work for those with some time to kill (no pun intended).
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
At least Reno is around -- and he's the only spice in this stale, slick stew
Read Full Review
50
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Driven by sheer enthusiam (much of it for the worst excesses of Hollywood filmmaking), which makes it fun to watch in spite of its fundamental ridiculousness.
Read Full Review
40
The New York Times A.O. Scott
Culinary purists have observed that much of what passes for the spicy Japanese condiment wasabi at American restaurants is an ersatz concoction of horseradish and green food coloring. The French-language action comedy Wasabi is just as artificial, pumped with horseradish to give it heat in lieu of actual spice.
Read Full Review
40
Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
Wasabi 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.
Read Full Review
38
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is a thriller trapped inside a pop comedy set in Japan, and gives Reno a chirpy young co-star who bounces around him like a puppy on visiting day at the drunk tank.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Xerxes K. gave it a10:
The best movie i've seen! High fun & perfect story line. It's worth it see.

Jose C. gave it a3:
This movie was horrible. I can't believe the other reviews below. It is not funny and you keep hoping it ends soon. Stay away from this, especially if you like Jean Reno -- your opinion may change after this.

Thomas L. gave it a 7:
Wasabi had a lot of heart. Reno and hirosue were great together. This is a refreshing comedy that has a human element that I enjoyed very much. Besides, movies aren't supposed to obey the laws of physics... if they did there would be no Hollywood.

Mazena gave it a 10:
I juust loved it! Maybe the fact that I'm crazy about Japan and I study french helped a little, but still... The soundtracks good too, it didn't have the ddr song though (it was 'dive' btw) nor the song Yumi played at her room. Well.. The movie deserved 10. The only downside of the movie was the english dub... thank god you could turn it off ^^

Joshua W. gave it a 10:
This is the kind of movie where plausibility has no place, and that's perfect. I saw it twice in one day and enjoyed it even more the second time. I had more fun watching this movie than I've had in quite a while. I wish more movies could be this entertaining and true to themselves.

Phat man gave it a 10:
This is great. rent it. great music and great fighting. ryoko hirosue is also hot.

[Anonymous] gave it an 8:
Pretty good comedy, if you know how to set aside some things like logic and the laws of physics :-)

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: iPhone 3G | Fantasy Football | Moneywatch | Antivirus Software | Recipes | E3 2009

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use