★★½
“That’s my father’s sword. Put it down.”
It’s a samurai film. Except, it’s a Western. Only, it’s one which takes place in Scotland. I trust that’s cleared up any confusion here. However, you will still need to manage your expectations, because based on both the poster and the trailer, it would be easy to go in expecting something action-packed. It is not. At all. That element is heavily back-loaded, to the final fifteen minutes. It does include one of the more imaginative and splattery kills I’ve seen this year. Probably a bonus half-star for that alone. However, it’s more a movie about mood, atmosphere and scenery than arterial spray. But I lived in Scotland. I already know it’s pretty.
This unfolds at almost the very end of the 18th century, when Fujin (Hira) and his daughter Tornado (Kōki) are taking their samurai puppet show around the Scottish lowlands. She comes into possession of some gold, which has been stolen from a church by a gang, led by Sugarman (Roth) and his son, Little Sugar (Lowden). They’re not happy, and pursue the caravan in which she’s travelling with her father. This leads to a confrontation in which Fujin is killed, albeit not before badly wounding Sugarman. Tornado flees into the forest, to regroup, and eventually plot her revenge against the robber and his pals, using the skills taught to her, to pick them off one by one on her way to the inevitable final confrontation with Sugarman.
I respect what this is trying to do, and it’s certainly a combination of genres and settings which I had not seen before. Unfortunately, the execution is plagued with a number of missteps, which hamper the end results and negate many of the positive elements. Right from the start, we are thrown into the middle of things, with Tornado running from Sugarman and his henchmen. The film is curiously reluctant to tell us what is going on – or, more importantly, why we should care – being too leisurely to fill in the blanks. There’s also a cut-out between the gang and Tornado, in the shape of a kid who actually carried out the initial theft. Beyond giving the heroine ‘clean hands’, it’s an unnecessary complication.
On the performance side, Roth is good value as ever in a villainous role: I was inevitably reminded of Rob Roy, where he previously played the bad guy in 18th-century Scotland. Kōki has rather more experience as a model than an actress, and director MacLean wisely keeps the need for actual dramatics to a minimum, opting to make her the stoic samurai type, so she’s good enough. It all looks quite lovely, so while you are waiting around for something much to happen – which will be the majority of the hour and a half – you can admire the cinematography and picturesque Scottish landscapes. It wasn’t quite enough for me. While possible to admire the intent, this is likely a case of “It’s not you, it’s me.”
Dir: John Maclean
Star: Kōki, Tim Roth, Takehiro Hira, Jack Lowden