Tornado

Bluesky

The script is lean, the sword edges keen and the characters mean in Tornado. The second feature from John Maclean – a long time coming since 2015’s Slow West – is a stripped back and propulsive affair centring on a Japanese puppeteer’s daughter, Tornado (model-turned-actress Kôki), who finds herself unexpectedly on the run from a gang of criminals led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) against the bleak and wild backdrop of 1790s Britain.

Maclean plunges us straight into a chase, with Tornado and a young boy (Nathan Malone) desperately fleeing Sugarman, his son Little Sugar (Jack Lowden) and the rest of Sugarman’s cronies, before winding us back to show how a puppet show performance with her father (Takehiro Hira) – a skilful and entertaining interlude in its own right – led Tornado’s path to cross theirs.

Essentially a chase-and-fight film, it shares a lot of DNA with Slow West, just as the samurai films Maclean draws on for Tornado share much in common with the Westerns that infused his debut. As with Slow West, Maclean paints a picture of a society that isn’t just full of locals, a travelling band of itinerant performers, with whom Tornado and her father are passing through, is a multicultural band, their camaraderie in stark contrast to the thuggishness of the locals. As with Slow West, he also brings a mordant humour to proceedings, while never letting that undercut the high stakes surrounding Tornado’s predicament.

Bigger on atmosphere than plot development, the intergenerational conflict between Little Sugar and his father and Tornado and hers are neatly mirrored but the dads’ personalities dominate to such a degree, the younger generation pales in comparison. While there’s something to be said for not slipping into deep and meaningful conversations every five minutes, the sketchy nature of it means that Lowden, in particular, doesn’t have too much to grasp on to.

Luckily, Lowden is among the best of his generation, bringing a sturdiness to what, in other hands, might have felt flimsy, as Little Sugar tries to execute his own agenda in order to recover the loot. Maclean may be cutting through a lot of the usual plot development niceties, but his kills are inventive and, with A-list cinematographer Robbie Ryan behind the camera – whose elegant and immersive framing has enhanced everything from Poor Things and Slow West through to Bird – the film blends the beauty of the Scottish landscape with classic samurai shots with ease. Never less than gripping but you’re more likely to be left with the memory of the look of a beautiful shot rather than a feel for the characters and their plight.