“‘Tornado’ Offers An Unconventional Yet Winning Spin On The Samurai Story”

It’s been a while since I saw John Maclean’s Slow West, but according to memory, I dug that one; so, 10 years later, I’m not entirely surprised to find I also dug Tornado, his latest, though I sat through it with some degree of consternation that it took him this fucking long to make a second picture. Whatever. Fine. Fine

This is an interesting release for this particular pop culture moment, where Japan is “in,” at least if we go by media like Shogun; Maclean is a somber eccentric, peppering his films with little semi-surrealist “ticks” that belie the percentage of realism giving their stories a backbone. Were there many, or any, Japanese traveling artisans and merchants hoofing it around Scotland in the 1600s, 1700s, or 1800s? Beats me. I’m also not sure that I really care. The product of Maclean’s imaginative historical fiction is one of the finer jidaigeki movies I’ve seen in some time.

You can read my full thoughts over at The A.V. Club.

Leave a Reply