Kōki,

Tim Roth

Jack Lowden

Takehiro Hira

Rory McCann

Ian Hanmore

Jamie Michie

Jack Morris

Sammy Hayman

Nathan Malone

Dennis Okwera

Raphaël Thiéry

Joanne Whalley

Alex Macqueen

Douglas Russell

Bryan Michael Mills

Andy Wang

John Maclean

Matthew E. Chausse

Simon Williams

Leonora Darby

Joe Simpson

Mark Lane

Colin Jones

Elizabeth El-Kadhi Brown

James Harris

Robbie Ryan

Hazel d Smith

Kat Morgan

Jackson Pritchard

Kirsty Halliday

Morris Milne

Kirsty Auld

Jed Kurzel

Drama

Thriller

Crime

Action

Tornado

HanWay Films

Tea Shop Productions

National Lottery

BFI Network

Ashland Hill Media Finance

United Kingdom

United States of America

CinemaSerf

To be honest, I was really quite disappointed with this. It all centres around the search for some stolen gold that has been re-stolen and hidden by “Tornado”, the partner in a father/daughter Japanese puppetry show that is touring the shires of late 18th century Britain. The gold was originally acquired by “Sugar” (Tim Roth) and his gang but as they stopped to watch the show, it was re-acquired by an opportunist urchin (Nathan Malone) whilst he was being watched by “Tornado” (Kôki). When the gang discover it’s missing, all hell breaks loose and so she hides the loot and the boy in their wagon and off they go. It doesn’t take long for the men to put two and two together and they set after the slow-moving visitors and a rather dishonourable encounter ensues. Meantime, “Little Sugar” (Jack Lowden) is tired of taking orders from his old man and has plans of his own to secure the cash - and that’s bound to lead to a conflict with his no-nonsense father. So now we have a brute chasing his money, a son looking for change and a samurai-trained woman out for revenge. It has the ingredients of a good adventure. Sadly, though, she is just not a very convincing actor, there is far too much meandering around the countryside setting and re-setting the scenario and there is a real paucity of pace here. It can’t have had an huge budget, but that needn’t have mattered if the the story had taken a little longer to develop a little more depth to the characters. It’s all too episodic and though it does mix the timelines a little to break up the narrative, there are too many characters who appear then add little before we move on. It does create an overall sense of a fairly poverty-stricken and lawless rural life, but once we hit the home straight it all just takes a predictable path to it’s conclusion. Nobody is really used to full effect here and though the bleakness is conveyed well enough, the story doesn’t really deliver.