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Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
This Scottish Samurai Movie Is the Summer's Must-See Action Flick
After a 10-year hiatus, Scottish musician-turned-filmmaker John Maclean has released a follow-up to his stellar debut feature Slow West (2015). Tornado, which stars Japanese superstar Kōki, [sic] as the title character out to avenge her samurai father's death, bears many resemblances to Maclean's debut. Slow West was a downbeat, elegiac classical Western about a love-lorn Scotsman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who travels to America to reunite with his betrothed and is assisted by a bounty hunter (Michael Fassbender) who offers him protection from marauding factions. It's a film adequately described by its title, one with no lack of action but decidedly painterly in its approach. The grisly shootouts are executed with exacting realism; they're short and brutal, hardly heroic. Tornado is cut from the same cloth—arthouse meets down and dirty exploitation—though perhaps surprisingly, Maclean's latest falls more firmly into the latter camp. The film begins in the middle, with Tornado being pursued through the Scottish Highlands (circa 1791) by a band of swarthy criminals led by Tim Roth's Sugar Man. She seeks refuge in a posh manor, which the criminals—a significant gaggle including Sugar Man's right-hand man Kitten (Rory McCann) and his son, Little Sugar (Jack Lowden), who harbors a barely concealed resentment for his father—soon invade. Suddenly, we're back at the beginning. Tornado wakes up early to assist her father, Fujin (Takehiro Ita), with his elaborate traveling puppet show, which involves blood-spewing severed limbs and a third-act samurai-sword duel between Fuji and Tornado to the delight of the assembled crowd. Bizarrely, part of the crowd includes Kitten, Little Sugar, and a few of their compatriots, who have just stolen a pot of gold and are on their way to stash it, but decide to stop off for a matinee. That's when a young scourge (Nathan Malone, credited as 'The Boy') spots the gold and steals it. But Tornado sees an opportunity to take it for herself, forever changing her and her father's fortunes. Unfortunately, Little Sugar is ahead of her game and treks after Fujin and Tornado to take the money for himself. That breakdown almost makes Tornado sound unnecessarily convoluted, but it couldn't be any simpler or more stripped down. Maclean's film is almost deceptively slight, featuring little dialogue and hardly any explanation at all for what's happening. This is a film which requires you to actively engage with it, one which tells most of its story through the silent expressions of its characters. Part of the reason this works particularly well within the context of Tornado is because, though the film is an exhilarating marvel, it's a story we've seen a thousand times before. There's no need to over-explain, or even explain, some things because if you've seen one film in this genre, you probably get it already. The cast, including a simmering Joanne Whalley and a welcome Raphaël Thiéry, is roundly up to the task. In her first major film role, Kōki, proves a formidable presence. Though she remains largely unknown around the rest of the world, in her native Japan, she's a model and singer who's achieved a level of fame on par with Taylor Swift. Roth is particularly exceptional, playing Sugar Man with a morbid subtlety which seems to hint that his character has died long before the film begins. It's a breathtaking performance which shows, once again, how eternally talented and confident Roth is as an there's any ambiguity, Tornado is a masterful picture and a delightfully immersive work. It's incredibly rare to see a film which is not only so completely sure of what it is but is constantly in concert with itself. There isn't a single moment that's out of tune, nor an image that doesn't feel a part of this world. It's at once a chase movie and a character piece, a film which rarely slows down and reinvents its simple narrative with a series of well-chosen set-piece locations. Maclean wisely withholds much of the samurai action until the last act, but when Tornado unleashes her rage, it comes fast and furious. It's both shockingly gory and smartly curtailed (no 20-minute duels here, folks), recalling classic samurai pictures in which the battles consisted of a few well-timed strokes of the blade. The utter brilliance of Maclean is that he trusts his audience and treats them with intelligence. As a result, he delivers a spare, 85-minute thriller with an abundance of toe-tapping action, but which crucially doesn't sacrifice a powerful expression of its central conceits for length. Much like Steven Soderbergh's similarly brilliant, pared-down spy thriller Black Bag from earlier this year, Tornado is a pint-sized epic. The sleek exterior belies a kaleidoscopic exploration of humanity. It's the thinking person's popcorn Scottish Samurai Movie Is the Summer's Must-See Action Flick first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 3, 2025 Solve the daily Crossword
Telegraph
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Tornado: this Scottish Samurai saga leaves us lost
Tornado whirls in with promising novelty on its side. When was the last time we saw an attempt at a samurai western set in 1790 Scotland? It hardly draws breath, which sounds like a good thing, but then you start to notice it's built from stunted components. Why, for instance, does the characterisation wind up being so stick-figure-ish, and the story so curtailed? It has taken a decade for writer-director John Maclean to follow up his 2015 debut Slow West, a gnarled, bruising business with Michael Fassbender as a bounty hunter in 19th-century Colorado. Maclean loves to plot an ambush and lurk in the bushes waiting for it. If these films set the tone for a durable career – which I genuinely hope they do – the game will be guessing who survives each foray of his, and trusting him to trip up our expectations. This is exactly where Tornado fumbles and leaves us lost. Our rooting interest defaults, without enough care, to the title character, played by the 22-year-old Japanese model/songwriter Kōki. She's an itinerant puppeteer, being trained by her father (Takehiro Hira) to put on ingenious jidaigeki equivalents of a Punch and Judy show, using their covered waggon as a stage. He's also instructing her in swordplay, upon which her survival in this dog-eat-dog tale is heavily contingent. We begin midway through the action, with Tornado chased across blustery braes, then seeking refuge in a stranger's mansion. A gang of brigands, headed by Tim Roth 's dogged Sugarman, are sure she knows the whereabouts of two sacks of gold, which have mysteriously vanished during one of her puppet shows. Sugarman's snake of a son, Little Sugar (Jack Lowden), knows more than he's letting on, scheming to double-cross the lot of them. The narrative switchbacks are gunning for a Tarantinoesque finesse: Roth slits a confederate's throat for no clear reason, until the flashback half an hour later explains it. The scenario has solid potential as a plunge into Treasure of the Sierra Madre-style paranoia. The way it's executed here, though, plants an awful lot of stumbling blocks. Continuity's all over the shop. Alleged storms brew out of clear blue skies. The gold migrates here, there and everywhere. If production problems didn't thwart Maclean and crew from making a proper fist of all this, the editing took its eye off the ball. The actors are left increasingly high and dry. Roth can do soul-sick fatigue alright, and Lowden scores as a treacherous lone wolf, but they barely have any other notes to play. Among their accomplices is a black, stone-cold killer named Psycho (Dennis Okwera), who – a rank cliché, this – never utters a word. Kōki's character, meanwhile, speaks inexplicable amounts of English, even to herself, and she's too unready as an actress to find a headspace that's sorely missing in the script. Meanwhile, bright red splashes of gore streak garishly across the movie. Some of Robbie Ryan's wide shots have a stark grandeur, at the very least – especially when Jed Kurzel's doomy, drum-laden score kicks in. Thanks to their efforts, we're at least fitfully absorbed until the last act – a sorely unemotive climax, despite laboured stabs in that direction. It ends with neither a whimper nor a bang, but a muffled thud. 15 cert, 91 min. In cinemas June 13
Irish Times
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Tornado review: A singular, if rarely easy, watch about double-crossing rogues on the rampage
Tornado Director : John Maclean Cert : None Genre : Drama Starring : Tim Roth, Jack Lowden, Takehiro Hira, Joanne Whalley, Koki Running Time : 1 hr 31 mins In Tornado the film-maker John Maclean returns to the austere storytelling that defined Slow West , his well-regarded debut, from 2015. Set in a rugged and unnamed corner of 18th-century Scotland, the film follows the taciturn young circus performer of the title and her father as they are drawn into a deadly pursuit. Despite the ambiguous period setting, the McGuffin is familiar: an opportunistic theft, a misplaced bag of swag, and double-crossing rogues on the rampage. The heroine, played by the Japanese actor and musician Koki, is a stoic teenager with a talent for swordplay and a complicated, sulky relationship with her dad, Fujin (Takehiro Hira), a warrior turned puppet master. Their life on the road, performing morality puppet plays with a touch of Punch and Judy ultraviolence, takes a dark turn when a local scallywag absconds with two bags of stolen gold during one of their shows. The theft attracts the attention of Sugarman, a grizzled, ruthless outlaw (Tim Roth at his meanest) with a small gang of thugs in tow, including his disgruntled son, Little Sugar (Jack Lowden). As Sugarman's group pursues Tornado across misty moors and abandoned villages, the muted action unfolds less as a traditional revenge plot and more as a meditation on end-of-days degeneracy. For all the genre signifiers, Maclean's confusing, fragmented structure, contemplative pillow shots and dour tone leave little room for the playful high-jinks of Kill Bill or Samurai Jack. READ MORE Which year did Marty not visit? 1885 1955 2015 2055 What was Clint Eastwood's first film as director? The Outlaw Josey Wales Play Misty for Me Firefox Bird Who is not a sibling? Macaulay Kieran Rory Benji The actor playing the title character of which film was actually born in the US? Klute (1971) The Mask (1994) Dudley Do-Right (1999) Green Lantern (2011) What is the last Pixar film to win the best animated feature Oscar? Soul Onward Coco Inside Out Which is the odd period out? Ms Weld Dan Aykroyd in Dragnet Ms Squibb Christina Ricci in The Addams Family Who was not portrayed by Steph? Ally Lee Patrizia Breathless Which is the odd one out? Harrison Ford's other profession 2024 Palme d'Or winner Todd Haynes's notorious early short Halloween and Escape from New York Who is about to succeed, among many, many others, James Whale, Terence Fisher and Kenneth Branagh? Guillermo del Toro Ari Aster David Lowery Robert Eggers Whose daughter fought the Triffids? Alison Steadman Thora Hird Patricia Routledge Margaret Rutherford Robbie Ryan, who was also the cinematographer on The Favourite and Poor Things, leans into the script's sense of dread. Through his lens the bleak Scottish landscape becomes a grey antagonist that threatens to drown everyone in apocalyptic rain. The characters, accordingly, often appear small and helpless against the remote hills. Up close, however, the handsome costume and production design are frequently too anachronistic to engage. Even the title feels as if it belongs to a different film. Tornado will frustrate the giblets out of anyone seeking narrative momentum or emotional catharsis. But viewers willing to sit with its stark silences and oppressive atmospherics can look forward to a singular, if rarely easy, watch. In cinemas from Friday, June 13th
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The worst sports movie in history? I asked Sepp Blatter about Fifa's United Passions
There are movies that bomb at the box office. And then there is the Fifa biopic United Passions, starring Tim Roth, Sam Neill and Gérard Depardieu, which was hit with the cinematic equivalent of a thermonuclear strike when it opened in the US 10 years ago this week. You might remember the fallout; the fact it took only $918 (£678) in its opening weekend, making it the lowest grossing film in US history at the time, and the stories detailing how two people bought tickets to see it in Philadelphia, and only one in Phoenix, before it was pulled by distributors. Then there were the reviews. 'As cinema it is excrement,' Jordan Hoffman wrote in the Guardian. 'As proof of corporate insanity it is a valuable case study. United Passions is a disgrace.' Admittedly, there was never going to be a good time to launch 109 minutes of soft-sheen history and propaganda about Jules Rimet, João Havelange and Sepp Blatter. But when 14 Fifa members were indicted on corruption charges just days before the $26m (£19m) film's US release, the film became a byword for hubris and excess. Only in Russia, where it made £140,000 at the box office, did it muster any sort of audience. Although what they made of Neill's attempt at Havelenge's accent, which veered wildly between Brazil, New Zealand and Ireland, is anyone's guess. The 10-year anniversary seemed like the perfect time for me to grit my teeth and watch United Passions for the first time. I also hoped that those involved might have got over their collective embarrassment and would be prepared to talk about it. Was it really the worst sports movie in history? Worse than Rocky V? Or the Love Guru, which starred Mike Myers as a bearded Indian whose task, in the words of the Observer's then critic Philip French, 'is to counsel a black ice-hockey star whose wife has run off with a French Canadian goalkeeper known as 'Le Coq' for the prodigious size of his membrum virile'. Having watched it, I can say that United Passions really is right up there. The script feels like it was written by a 2015 version of ChatGPT that has been programmed to hate the English, who come across as universally pompous. The dodgy stuff in Fifa's history is danced around, or ignored. And some of it is so cringey it makes you gasp. At one point, for instance, Blatter expresses his fears over the 1978 World Cup in Argentina because the military government is murdering its opponents. 'Who cares,' Havelange replies. 'During the World Cup they only dream of one thing, that ball. Because football brings consolation to all tragedies and sorrows!' That is the same Havelange who took millions in bribes and kickbacks from Fifa's deals with the marketing company ISL. In fact, United Passions is so comically awful the Internet Movie Database gives it 2.1 out of 10, a ranking so dismal it would qualify for its worst 100 films of all time list if it had the 10,000 votes needed to qualify. When the film came out Roth, who plays Blatter, admitted: 'This is a role that will have my father turning in his grave,' before confessing he did it only to put his kids through college. You can fault his performance, but not his honesty. A decade on, however, few others want to revisit it. The publicist sent me a lovely email but didn't remember many specifics. An ex-Fifa employee jokingly referred to the film as a 'blockbuster' but had only vague memories of its genesis. Fifa, meanwhile, didn't want to comment. The only exception? Blatter himself. When I spoke to his official spokesperson, Thomas Renggli, he asked me to fire over a few questions. A day later, he came back with the replies. 'Obviously the movie was not a success,' Blatter, who turns 90 next year, told me. 'A movie about Fifa is always controversial, so for me it was not a surprise that the opinions were so different in Russia and in the US.' Blatter also insisted that the concept of United Passions had not come from him and, contrary to internet rumour, he had not tinkered with the script to make himself the hero. 'The idea came up after there was a small movie called Goal,' he said. 'And in this environment, the Fifa management brought up the idea of producing a big movie. It was definitely not only me behind it. And concerning my part in the production, I was only an adviser. I was not involved in the script.' Which is just as well, because it is bad. Really, really bad. A few minutes into the film, for instance, Rimet tries to get Football Association bigwigs to join Fifa while speaking to them at half-time during a game. 'Our boys are two goals down gentlemen!' Rimet is told. 'There are things much more important than life and death. There is football. And at half-time things are deadly serious!' Blatter also insisted he was OK with how the film turned out, but Renggli told me that there was befuddlement when it was shown to Fifa employees before its premiere at the Cannes film festival. 'We were all sitting there in this big auditorium and everybody was thinking, 'what do they want to tell us with this film?' To me it did not make sense at all.' There are some, of course, who think Fifa will be making another expensive mistake in the US this weekend when it launches its 32-team Club World Cup. The early signs are not positive, with tickets for the opening game between Lionel Messi's Inter Miami and Al Ahly going for $55 – 16% of the original asking price of $349. There are also concerns with player welfare, given the increase in the number of games and Blatter, who was recently cleared of fraud by a Swiss court, is not a fan of the tournament, or next year's expanded 48-team World Cup. 'Havelange once told me that I made a monster when I created this wedding between TV and football,' he told me. 'But now it's all too much. There are too many games. And too many teams in the tournaments. Sooner or later, we will have 128 teams, like in a tennis grand slam.' And whatever you think of Blatter, or indeed United Passions, it is hard to disagree too much with those sentiments.
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Tornado' Review: She Wants Revenge
This crackling movie begins with what some might take for a bit of misdirection: a quotation from a poem by Arseny Tarkovsky, the father of the great filmmaker Andrei. 'I would readily pay with my life / For a safe place with constant warmth / Were it not that life's flying needle / Leads me on through the world like a thread.' Given that the movie concerns Tornado, a young swordswoman who has to make her way through a hostile British countryside after wastrels kill her father, one might wonder what Tarkovsky has to do with it. But first consider the statement rather than its origin. Tornado (Koki) has been touring with her samurai father (Takehiro Hira) through rural England, performing a charming puppet show. An initially prankish bit of business involving two sacks of stolen gold gets the duo in big trouble with a pack of thieves led by Sugarman (Tim Roth). The writer-director John Maclean, who deftly played with genre in his 2015 feature debut 'Slow West,' is similarly sure-handed here. The movie quickly establishes itself as a revenge narrative, and each bad guy goes down in a way designed to suit the viewer's justified bloodlust. In the title role, the singer-songwriter Koki is both charming and indomitable; when she announces 'I am Tornado,' you feel your internal applause sign light up. And Nathan Malone, who plays the little boy following Tornado as she eludes the bad guys, is reminiscent of the nervy star of Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Ivan's Childhood.'
