Colin Farrell Leads First Look At Edward Berger’s Ballad Of A Small Player

In the last three years, Edward Berger has cemented his status as one of the finest filmmakers working today, earning rave reviews and no shortage of awards recognition with the extraordinary one-two punch of First World War epic All Quiet On The Western Front in 2022 and papal conspiracy thriller Conclave just last year. It’s a sizzling streak that looks set to continue with Berger’s next movie, Ballad Of A Small Player, a Netflix bound gambling thriller adapted from Lawrence Osborne’s eponymous 2014 novel and starring a wondrously moustachioed Colin Farrell. Just take a look at the first pictures from the film below and see for yourself;

Compelling. Mysterious. Audacious. Almost hypnotic. Yes, Farrell’s ‘tache really is quite something, ain’t it? But seriously, as first-look images go, these — with their eye-catching red-and-green colour scheme, crushed velvet, neon lights, and magnetising looks of both frosty and consternation from Farrell — are really doing it for us. Here, Farrell stars as Lord Doyle, who Netflix’s official synopsis for the movie tells us is “a high-stakes gambler lying low in Macau, China.” As you’d imagine is surely the case for any high-stakes gambler who finds themself needing to lie low in Macau, China, it seems Lord Doyle has more than a few skeletons in the closet, as the synopsis continues to corroborate: “When his past and his debts start to catch up with him, Doyle encounters a kindred spirit who might just hold the key to his salvation.” Said kindred spirit would be the enigmatic Dao Ming, played in Berger’s film by Shang-Chi‘s Fala Chen and seen speaking to Doyle in the first of the above pictures.

If Berger’s movie follows Osborne’s book (which 28 Weeks Later scribe Rowan Joffé has adapted for screen), then viewers can look forward to a slow-burning smoulderer of a thriller, one entrenched in money, morality, and Eastern mysticism — and one co-starring Tilda Swinton, Alex Jennings, and Deanie Ip among others. And we’ll find out for ourselves whether Netflix’s latest bet on Berger pays off when Ballad Of A Small Player hits cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 17 October, and starts streaming worldwide on 29 October. Count us in!