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The script is lean, the sword edges keen and the characters mean in Tornado. The second feature from John Maclean – a long time coming since 2015’s Slow West – is a stripped back and propulsive affair centring on a Japanese puppeteer’s daughter, Tornado (model-turned-actress Kôki), who finds herself unexpectedly on the run from a gang of criminals led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) against the bleak and wild backdrop of 1790s Britain.

Maclean plunges us straight into a chase, with Tornado and a young boy (Nathan Malone) desperately fleeing Sugarman, his son Little Sugar (Jack Lowden) and the rest of Sugarman’s cronies, before winding us back to show how a puppet show performance with her father (Takehiro Hira) – a skilful and entertaining interlude in its own right – led Tornado’s path to cross theirs.

Essentially a chase-and-fight film, it shares a lot of DNA with Slow West, just as the.

From left, Allison Gardner, Rory McCann, John Maclean, Tim Roth, Kôki, Takehiro Hira Photo: Amber Wilkinson

Glasgow Film Festival opened its 25th edition last night - and the last with long-term director Allison Gardner at the helm - with the world premiere of John Maclean’s Scottish samurai movie Tornado.

The film, which sees a young woman (Kôki) going on the run from a gang of criminals led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) and his son Little Sugar (Jack Lowden), played to packed and appreciative audience at Glasgow Film Theatre and was attended by the director, Roth, Kôki, Takehiro Hira, who plays her father in the film, and Rory McCann, who is one of Sugarman’s gang.

In a Q&a after the film, Maclean said he felt there was a similarity with his previous film Slow West.

Tim Roth, Kôki and John Maclean on Gff red carpet Photo: Courtesy of...

During the promotional tour for “Mad Max: Fury Road” back in 2015, director George Miller discussed how silent cinema had inspired the filmmaking ethos behind his chase-movie epic. His hope was that you could potentially watch “Fury Road” as a silent film and still get most of what you needed in terms of the story from the visual language and physical performances of the actors.

When it comes to milieu, the petrol-punk dystopia of “Mad Max” is far removed from the period-piece trappings of “Tornado,” writer-director John Maclean’s long-awaited follow-up to his offbeat western “Slow West” (2015). But for the length of its gripping first act, Maclean’s earthy survival thriller seems pointed towards very similar ends.

Light on dialogue and exposition, the roughly 25-minute opening stretch excels as a work of sustained tension, with the odd farcical stunt — reminding you that this is the same filmmaker behind the “Slow West...

The second feature from John Maclean is an almost surreal tale of itinerant martial arts performers and a band of thieves in 18th-century Scotland

John Maclean’s new movie is a dour, pessimistic, almost surrealistically downbeat revenge western set in Scotland in the late 18th century – but it could as well be happening in some post-apocalyptic landscape of the distant future or on another planet. This is the follow-up to his debut Slow West, and as with that film it is shot by Robbie Ryan with music by Jed Kurzel (director Justin’s brother and collaborator). I have to admit, though, that this does not quite have the energy or the fluency of that previous film, perhaps not the same production resources either – and by comparison it is more strenuously contrived. Yet the pure strangeness of the movie commands attention and there is a charismatic lead performance by Japanese actor-musician Mitsuki Kimura,...

Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur is a rare sort these days. Here is a director who has built a successful, decades-long career making solid, genre-heavy programmers while often returning to Iceland to put in solid work. There was a time that this kind of output was the lifeblood of the industry. His type nearly extinct now, Kormákur beats on, telling stories for adults.

His new film, Touch, fits right into the mold. Talk about a relic: a mid-budget romantic drama released in theaters! Written by Kormákur and Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (based on Ólafur’s 2022 novel of the same name), it tells the story of Kristófer (Egill Olafsson), an older widow who shuts down his restaurant in Iceland and travels to Japan in an attempt to find Miko, the love of his life from half a century ago.

It’s the beginning of 2020 and Covid-19 is swiftly shutting the world down. We...

As has been the case most of the year, any weekend with a big movie tends to be followed by a lighter weekend with a bunch of odds and ends, and that’s the case this weekend as well. Read on for Gold Derby’s box office preview.

As “Despicable Me 4” and “Inside Out 2” continue to dominate, we get a number of smaller movies, even though one of them has two major A-list stars working together in a genre that hasn’t been particularly well represented in theaters this summer … the comedy.

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum star in the historic rom-com “Fly Me to the Moon” with Johansson playing marketing expert Kelly Jones, who is called upon by the government – specifically by Woody Harrelson – to help get the country excited about the USA putting a man on the moon. Tatum plays launch director Cole Davis, who is...

Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur made a handful of smaller films before bursting into mainstream Hollywood with the Mark Wahlberg action flick "Contraband" in 2012. He's stayed steadily busy ever since, cranking out the Denzel Washington/Mark Wahlberg actioner "2 Guns" in 2013, the ensemble mountain climbing thriller "Everest" in 2015, the Shailene Woodley/Sam Claflin survival movie "Adrift" in 2018, and the "Idris Elba fights a lion" movie "Beast" in 2022, plus directing a couple of television shows in between. As those credits indicate, Kormákur is primarily known to American audiences for his high-octane filmmaking style. His latest project, however, marks a significant change of pace.

"Touch," written by Kormákur and Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (based on a novel by Ólafsson), tells the story of Kristófer, an elderly Icelander whose wife has passed away. Spurred on by some health issues of his own and sense that he's running out of time, Kristófer sets out to find a woman named Miko,...

The One Who Got Away is a romantic notion that’s been widely propagated by pop culture cinema. And for good reason, as heartfelt drama and compelling conflicts arise authentically from these confrontations with fate. Director-co-writer Baltasar Kormákur’s “Touch,” based on Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson’s novel of the same name, expands on this swoon-worthy idea, elegantly crafting an achingly poignant story centered on an elderly man searching for his true love amidst a time of uncertainty. This gentle, unfussy romance contains a heart-clutching finale that’s as classically restrained as it is emotionally resounding.

Kristofer (Egill Ólafsson) lives a lonely life on the chilly seaside of Iceland since the death of his wife years prior. His days consist of singing in a men’s choir, chatting on the phone with his overbearing daughter Sonja (Harpa Elísa Þórsdóttir), owning a restaurant in his sleepy village and returning to the sad,...