The poster pretty much says it all, aside from setting the right tone. Written by Luc Besson (director of Leon the Professional and the Fifth Element, as noted in the poster), Wasabi is almost a piece of comedic fluff.
Jean Reno plays a careless cop, distracted by a love he lost 19 years ago. After punching the Chief's son in the face, he's forced on a two month vacation to get his act together. He gets a call from a lawyer in japan shortly after - this is his last chance to catch up with his lost love. She's being creamated in a day or two.
Sounds hilarious, right? Well that's about the first 20 minutes of the flick, the rest is spent with his newly discovered daughter.
Parts of this reminded me of Leon, though there are a lot of different dynamics. At it's heart it's Jean Reno shooting people and bonding with a young girl. Well, she isn't too young. She's 19, and two days away from being "legal". According to his lost love's will, he's the only left legal guardian, and she's stuck with him for those 2 days.
That's the bulk of the film. It's surprisingly funny, given the premise, and has an odd tone. Action is sort of Robert Rodriguez style over the top, anyone getting shot doesn't have blood flying, but their body will fly across the room. Punches send people flying too. If you enjoy that kind of thing, you'll enjoy this. If not, it might be too much for ya.
Wasabi is in French, also. The dubbing is horrible and very distracting, so we watched it with subtitles.
It's a good rental. Check out your local blockbuster, or put it somewhere in your Netflix que. If you don't mind subtitles, and you enjoy slightly ridiculous action, this is a great little find. Plus you get to see Jean Reno attempting to play Dance Dance Revolution (5th mix)! And his daughter is hot.