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Oozing a little of the classic vibe of the iconic 1972’s Eastern Red Sun, director John Maclean, best known for his western Slow West which hit a decade ago, is back and he’s melding Eastern and Western cultures with violent and brutal results in Tornado as Japanese immigrants unfortunately cross paths with a band of cutthroats in Britain of the 1790’s.
New images have surfaced ahead of the film’s debut in theaters via IFC Films before its premiers one the Shudder streaming service. The cast includes Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction), Jack Lowden (Dunkirk), Takehiro Hira (Shōgun) and Koki (Ox-Head Village). Scroll below for the new set of images!
The plot for Tornado reads: “The film, set in the rugged landscape of 1790s Britain, follows Tornado (Kōki), a young and determined woman who finds herself caught in a perilous situation when she and her father’s (Hira) traveling puppet samurai show crosses paths with a gang of ruthless criminals led by Sugarman (Roth) and his ambitious son Little Sugar (Lowden). In an attempt to create a new life for herself, Tornado seizes the opportunity to take matters into her own hands and steal the gold from their most recent heist.”
This looks more like a slow burn potboiler than all out Samurai versus Cowboys onslaught, but is should still contain hits of hyper-violence and some action design. Maclean talked about his motivation for making this film by reading about former Samurai relocating to other countries when times were changing.
“I had read and heard a few things about samurais turning up in Spain and, a bit later, turning up in Scotland. There was a bit of an exodus of samurais because they were changing position all the time in Japan and they were becoming less warriors and more guns for hire, or swords for hire, and they wandered. So, I just made them wander into 1790s Britain.”
This trope has been done a few times before like I said with the aforementioned Red Sun which starred Charles Bronson, Toshirō Mifune, Alain Delon, Ursula Andress, and Capucine as well as most recently with 2010’s The Warrior’s Way which was about a warrior/assassin who travels to the American Badlands to hide after refusing to take on a mission. That movie was ripe with neo-noirish tints of fantasy infused with gritty, unflinching realism with genre bending action sequences. Unfortunately, a supporting cast that included Jang Dong-gun, Kate Bosworth, Geoffrey Rush and Danny Huston couldn’t rise this one to another level with audiences and it was quickly forgotten.
Tornado is set to hit in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on May 23 courtesy of Lionsgate before it lands on Shudder in the US. A trailer should launch very soon so keep a lookout for this one.
Source: Deadline
