It’s been ten years since filmmaker John Maclean burst onto the scene with the appropriately-named Western Slow West. For his second feature, Tornado, he remains in a similar time period, but moves the story to the British Isles where a Japanese puppeteer and samurai (Takehiro Hira) and his daughter (Kôki) run afoul of a group of outlaws led by Tim Roth and his son, played by Jack Lowden.
It’s another fantastic genre film from a director who hasn’t been nearly as prolific as his peers but who clearly puts a lot of time and effort into everything he does, and making a movie that combines samurai swordplay with Western violence makes Tornado as unique as Slow West.
Cinema Daily US spoke with Maclean recently for the interview you can watch in the video player above, speaking about his decision to make another Western, casting the two main Japanese actors, plus we also talked about him returning to play on the forthcoming tour with the Beta Band, whose sound will be familiar to fans of Stephen Frears’ 2000 adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity.
Tornado hits theaters in select cities starting May 30, 2025.
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Writer/Director: John Maclean
Cast: Tim Roth, Kôki, Jack Lowden, Takehiro Hira, Joanne Whalley, Rory McCann, Alex Macqueen, Jack Morris
Producer: Leonora Darby, James Harris, Mark Lane
Production Co: Tea Shop Productions, Screen Scotland
Distributor: Independent Film Company (aka IFC Films)
Rating: R (Strong Violence|Language)
Genre: Action, Thriller, Drama
Language: English, Japanese
Release Date (Theaters): May 30, 2025
Runtime: 1 hour, 31 minutes
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You can watch the trailer below: