An international romp from a screenplay by Luc Besson, "Wasabi" will bite anybody who thinks they know what to expect from a French film.

Jean Reno shines as tough guy cop Hubert who is at once effective and clueless. Suspended after he punches out the son of his police chief, Hubert receives the news that the love of his life, who left him nineteen years ago, has died in Japan. When he arrives in Tokyo, Hubert discovers he has a daughter: the hyperactive and funkified Yumi, played by Ryoko Hirosue, Japanese actress, singer, and pop phenomenon. Ryoko Hirosue is a whirling, giggling, shopping doll. As Hubert's sidekick Momo (Michel Muller) puts it: "I didn't know you had such sexy children." Their adventures through Hubert's past involve yakuza gangsters, hand grenades, and golf.

Jean Reno, with such versatile performances in such films as "Leon," "La Femme Nikita," "The Visitors," and "The Big Blue," is one of France's great distinctive faces. As the punch happy, emotionally closed off Hubert, Reno crosses Peter Sellers with Clint Eastwood. Equal parts Inspector Clouseau and Dirty Harry, he is violent and foolish, a sharp-shooting bafoon who drives his superiors crazy. To see him fail at the Japanese video game craze 'Dance Dance Revolution' is hilarious.

Reno manages to balance the film's ridiculous slapstick humor with dramatic scenes that don't quite recapture the weight of his relationship with Natalie Portman in "Leon" but nonetheless manage to touch.

In case it's not obvious yet: "Wasabi" is no art film. Do not expect ambling conversations about love and death. This is cartoony Japanese violence, complete with the giggles, by the way of French physical comedy: a bubbly international cocktail that is sweet, fast, silly, and very funny.