Slow West’s writer-director John Maclean finally returns to cinemas, with the story of a puppeteer samurai’s coming-of-age in 18th-century Scotland.

In 1790, a young girl helps her father with a travelling show across the lowlands, amazing crowds through dance, martial arts, and surreal marionette displays. Their travels lead them to stolen gold, and a criminal gang angling for it by any means, and so the girl must grow up and defend them by extreme measures. A decade after his last film, Maclean once again delivers a spectacularly idiosyncratic and exciting western, this time with Britain’s most otherworldly landscapes and bloody, elemental visuals. Crisp action and a strong multicultural cast, including Takehiro Hira (Shogun), Tim Roth, and Jack Lowden, bolster a sharp, simple, Kurosawa-esque story of a young woman forced into becoming a ruthless warrior.