15/06/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

If originality is one of the major objectives of filmmaking, then director John Maclean’s sophomore feature, Tornado, seems a promising concept. This strange genre mash-up could probably best be described as ‘a samurai revenge-Western set in sixteenth-century Scotland.’ I feel fairly confident that there haven’t been many other films that would fit that description. But like Maclean’s debut, Slow West, it’s ultimately an exercise in style over content.

We’re somewhere in ‘the British Isles’ in the 1500s and a young Japanese girl and an even younger boy are fleeing from a ragged gang of villains led by Sugarman (Tim Roth). The girl, it turns out, is the titular Tornado (Kôki,), who, we later learn – in a clumsily-handled flashback – has hidden a horde of stolen gold coins in the woods. The money was originally taken from Sugarman’s gang by The Boy (Nathan Malone), a random character who just happens to be hanging around. Tornado and her father, Fujin (Takehiro Hira), who are part of a travelling circus – are performing their puppet show when Sugarman and his gang show up.

Fujin, a former samurai, is still obsessed with honour and duty, but Tornado is much more interested in getting out of the hardscrabble existence she’s currently trapped in. When she spots the robbery, she takes the money from The Boy and hides it, giving him a single coin for his troubles. When Sugarman and his crew – which include his resentful son, Little Sugar (Jack Lowden) – start to exact brutal vengeance on anyone who stands between them and their loot, it becomes clear that Tornado is going to have to resort to her father’s samurai training to get herself out of trouble…

Tornado is undoubtedly a good-looking film, courtesy of Robbie Ryan’s cinematography, but we learn so little about the various characters, it’s hard to really care about any of them and that includes the lead, whose thoughtless actions ultimately lead to numerous deaths. There isn’t much dialogue here and what there is sounds utterly contemporary, which I’m sure is intentional, but serves to undermine the realism. Roth is a fabulous actor but is reduced to muttering short lines, and it’s also frustrating to see excellent actors like Jack Lowden and Joanne Whalley given precious little to do or say.

When the story finally kicks into action, the swordplay sequences are lacklustre and unconvincing, with Maclean more interested in framing individual shots than have his players rehearse until they’re drilled to perfection – and even at just an hour and forty minutes, the events feel strangely leaden, an interesting idea that doesn’t quite come off. A shame, because the trailer for this really led me to expect something more groundbreaking than it actually delivers.

3 stars

Philip Caveney