Today’s film asks: What if they set Kill Bill in the eighteenth-century British Isles? I suppose you have to adjust a little for period influences, especially regarding feminism. It’s probably worth note that Jane Austen was born in 1775, so a teenage girl in 1790 would have issues wielding her voice, let alone a katana.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The film opens with the titular Tornado (Kōki) fleeing for the woods. On her tail marching briskly and decisively is a group of stern adult men. They want her. For what, we dunno. But they definitely want her … and maybe that runty kid she seems to know, too.
Tornado finds shelter in an out-of-place manor house. Really? You’re gonna hide out there? What is this, Sardines? These men look serious; I wouldn’t stay too long if I were you.
It turns out this group of lawless thugs led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) have legitimate reason to hunt Tornado; she stole their gold. And now they want it back, and they don’t seem much like the forgive/forget/bygones crowd. How much gold? Enough for Tim Roth 
and his Honeybunnies to start gutting random people over.
Oh, and there’s this: Tornado is Japanese. She and her father are traveling carnies of a sort, staging violent puppet shows for a pittance. What are Japanese folks in the 18th century doing in the British Isles? Who can say. However, is dad a … samurai? I guess technically, he’d be ronin unless there’s some sort of feudal koi-pond estate north of Edenborough. Point is, there’s more to this pair than meets the eye, and maybe Tornado shouldn’t have stolen the gold and maybe the gold diggers shouldn’t have pushed so hard to retrieve it.
Tornado took a while for me to enjoy for as while everyone loves a good chase, this was eighty percent of the film. Also, I’m not terribly enamored with the austerity of the age or the bleakness of the landscape. I was constantly wondering why these two didn’t go back to Japan years ago. Tornado is most definitely a poor man’s Kill Bill. Perhaps a “poor woman’s Kill Bill” is more on point. There are worse films to style yours after, to be sure.
There once was a teenage troublemaker
Who got attention when she became a gold taker
Now she feels for the wood
Ain’t gonna do her much good
For her pursuers will search each and ev’ry acre
Rated R, 90 Minutes
Director: John Mclean (Officer John Mclean?)
Writer: John Mclean, Kate Leys
Genre: Pre-mobster
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Feminists
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Goons
