What is ironic about Tornado (2025) is that it is extremely rare for Scotland, the country in which the film is set, to experience the title weather phenomenon.  Then again, the country’s climate has little to do with the plot, although from watching it, one would wonder why anyone lives in that part of the British Isles.  Actually, I love the area, although my experience is limited to Edinburgh.  What is disappointing about the land, personally, is knowing the majority of their oldest churches are protestant instead of the Catholic places of worship they were meant to be.  None of this is a concern in the movie as it unfolds seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  What it is about is revenge, but 1790s Scottish/Japanese style.

The last thing you would expect from Tornado (Kōki) at the start is revenge.  She is on the run from a group of people, though the reasons for her fleeing are not clear.  Eventually, she makes her way to the only house in the area where her gang of pursuers sort of find her.  Actually, it is only one of their number, Little Sugar (Jack Lowden), but he does not immediately let his comrades know that he has caught their target.  Instead, he tells her to wait as he rejoins the others.  Their leader, Little Sugar’s father, Sugarman (Tim Roth), has strong words for his son.  Indeed, dad orders another henchman, Kitten (Rory McCann), to take care of his son while they continue their search.  Little Sugar turns the table on his would-be killer, and hides away in the woods observing the comings and goings of the rest of the cabal.  Meanwhile, Tornado goes back on the run, and Sugarman and the rest track her to a nearby camp belonging to a small circus.  These people are known to her, and vice versa, and they hide her.  This gives us a moment to explain how she gets into this predicament.  Like those giving her shelter, her and her father, Fujin (Takehiro Hira), are wandering performers.  Their schtick is putting on Japanese puppet shows.  In between their productions, dad has daughter practicing her skills with a samurai sword.  She is not a fan of the constant training and is not shy about voicing her disdain.  She carries on even while they are playing for the crowd, though he makes sure his retorts are in their native tongue so the audience does not understand.  At the same time, she has her eye on a local boy (Nathan Malone), with whom she is in league.  Their target is Sugarman’s gang, who have recently completed a crime spree in their area and toted their ill-gotten riches to Fujin’s portable stage.  While most of the others panic when they realize the loot is gone, Little Sugar has been keeping an eye on the boy’s activities.  Once everyone has cleared the area, he watches the kid be slipped into a compartment under the carriage before daughter and father depart.  They did not get far because they soon encounter a downed tree across the road.  With Sugarman and company rapidly approaching, Tornado and the boy hide the money in the woods.  Upon returning, she pleads for Fujin to go around the obstacle, but he refuses.  It is too late as Sugarman has finally caught up to them.  Fujin tells his offspring to turn her back no matter what happens, which is the inevitable, with dad being felled by an arrow.  Still, he manages to mortally wound Sugerman, though the outlaw does his best to cover up the injury moving forward.  This is what triggers the flight, and the circus people, particularly the strong man, is willing to provide her shelter owing to the mutual respect for Fujin.  It makes little difference to Sugarman and company, who decide to burn the vintage mobile homes in order to draw out Tornado.  It works, but the strong man springs her and the boy with his dying breath.  She also encounters Little Sugar, who wants her to take him to the treasure.  Instead, they are intercepted by Sugarman, who kills his son in retribution for the betrayal, allowing her to get away once more.  In the fog, the kid takes an arrow in the leg, but they reunite at Tornado’s cart.  Initially, she cannot locate the gold, but the boy weekly points out that Fujin had managed to move it.  Soon thereafter, the little one dies as well, and she is left to bury him and her father.  Now it is time for her to collect her weapons and plot her revenge.  In the morning, after throwing the bulk of the stash into the middle of a pond, she kills Sugarman’s gang one-by-one.  The last to die is the leader, who she finds already close to death.  With one last interaction with the circus folk, who give her some bread, she walks off into the sunset.

The question Tornado has at the conclusion is what is her identity.  Is she a simple killer or a samurai like Fujin?  She asks this of Virginia Crawford (Joanne Whalley), one of the troupe.  The response given to Tornado is that she is both, and neither.  This might sound like a copout, but it has some merit from a Catholic perspective.  It is arguably the biggest concern for many in their spiritual walk with Christ: who am I?  Catholicism places a great deal of importance on figuring out what we refer to as a vocation.  We have the options of married or religious life, though there are some gradations in those categories.  It is also not a decision to be taken lightly.  To figure it out, Catholics are encouraged to go on pilgrimages and/or retreats in order to spend time with God and discern the path forward.  In other words, it is not something to be taken lightly, which is what Tornado does with what her and her father’s profession.  In fairness to her, it does not appear to be anything she had chosen for herself.  For all of Fujin’s exasperation over his daughter’s attitude, I like to think that he knows that he is forcing her into a situation not of her choosing.  What he has to say also dovetails nicely with how a Christian should approach these big decisions.  Of these words of wisdom, my favorite is when he tells her about knowing when to move and to wait.  Granted, it is during sword training, but this fits with discernment.  Only with God’s help can we have a clue when it is right to be one thing or another.  To get back to the question of identity, it is only by surrendering to God’s will do we have any chance of being what we should be.

Though Tornado can be a little bloody, I think there is enough here that there is a chance you might like it.  I worried that she would be a bit of an anti-hero, but she does throw away the riches before getting revenge.  And while vengeance is not Christ-like behavior, the argument can be made that she is defending herself.