This Friday, May 30, IFC Films unleashes Tornado, a genre-defying revenge thriller set against the stark, windswept backdrop of 18th-century Scotland. Equal parts period drama/thriller and coming-of-age saga, the film premiered to acclaim at the Glasgow Film Festival, drawing praise for its innovative storytelling and visual flair.
Directed and penned by John Maclean (Slow West), the film follows a young Japanese woman, Tornado (Kōki), who embarks on a dangerous quest for revenge after her father is murdered by a ruthless gang.
Traveling with her father’s puppet Samurai show, Tornado’s life takes a violent turn when they cross paths with Sugarman (Tim Roth) and his son Little Sugar (Jack Lowden), criminals fresh off a heist. In a bid to escape and avenge her father’s death, Tornado steals their stolen gold, setting off a high-stakes race for survival.
Maclean, a founding member of the Beta Band, began his career making music promos with budgets ranging from zero to £70,000. In 2009, he wrote his first short film, Man on a Motorcycle, starring Michael Fassbender, who would later appear in Maclean’s subsequent works, including Pitch Black Heist and his debut feature, Slow West. After proving his skill in the western genre, Maclean sought to adapt it to 18th-century Britain, noting the similarities between 1790s Britain and 1860s America—both wild, lawless, and on the brink of change, with the law and the industrial revolution on the horizon.
To mark the film’s theatrical release this Friday, CinemaChords sat down with Maclean to explore the origins of this singular genre mash-up. He reflects on how the influence of Japanese masters like Ozu, Kurosawa, and Shindō shaped his storytelling approach, and explains his decision to center the film on multicultural outsiders rather than the familiar archetypes of Brontë or Austen. Maclean also discusses his deliberate rejection of moral absolutes, choosing instead to populate Tornado with complex characters—flawed, driven, and shaped by the weight of history and desperation.
