Tim roth

Tornado is a samurai spaghetti western starring Tim Roth, Jack Lowden and Takehiro Hira (among others). Samurai spaghetti westerns aren’t anything new. In fact, we wouldn’t have spaghetti westerns if it weren’t for the samurai genre – Sergio Leone’s Fistful of Dollars (1964) was, as Clint Eastwood conceded, an ‘obvious rip-off’* of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961) – yet this may be the first one set in 1790 and filmed in Scotland. It may also be the first one to feature thick woollens and tweed. That makes it sound twee which it isn’t. It’s a super-bloody revenge story filmed in just 25 days with a running time of 90 minutes. We

Bergman Island sounds, on first acquaintance, like a theme-park attraction. Roll up, roll up! Let us speed you through the shed where Max von Sydow is weeping and then plunge you downwards until you come face to face with a priest struggling with his faith. Then you’ll twist hard left – hold on! – to encounter Liv Ullmann suffering from a series of nightmares in which God appears graceless and indifferent. Or is God dead? To be fair, I’d probably go on such a ride. It may be more exciting than this, and over more quickly. That’s possibly too harsh, but this film is certainly most self-regarding. Written and directed