Netflix has set the premiere date for Ballad of a Small Player, the highly-anticipated thriller film starring Colin Farrell.

Adapted from Lawrence Osborne’s novel The Ballad of a Small Player (affiliate link), lauded as a “best book of the year” by The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and NPR when it was published in 2014, Ballad of a Small Player stars Academy Award® nominee Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin, The Penguin, Sugar) as the titular character, Lord Doyle.
How closely the film hews to the book remains to be seen. Per the novel’s plot synopsis, Doyle is a “corrupt English lawyer who has escaped prosecution by fleeing to the East” — a high-stakes gambler whose past and debts start to catch up with him.
Now laying low in the gambling mecca of Macau, Doyle “meets Dao-Ming, an enigmatic Chinese woman who appears to be a denizen of the casinos just like himself” — a kindred spirit who might just hold the key to his salvation. Co-starring as Dao-Ming is Fala Chen (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, The Undoing).
Ballad of a Small Player, a Netflix Film, premieres globally on Wednesday, October 29, exclusively on Netflix. (You can set a reminder for it now.)
Rounding out the lead cast is Oscar® winner Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton, We Need to Talk About Kevin), who plays Cynthia Blithe. Additional cast members include Alex Jennings (The Crown) and Jason Tobin (Warrior), amongst others.
A British-German production by Good Chaos, Nine Hours, Stigma Films, the film is directed by Oscar® nominee Edward Berger (All Quiet On The Western Front, Conclave, Deutschland 83) and adapted from Osborne’s novel by BAFTA winner Rowan Joffe (The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall, Tin Star). The producers are Mike Goodridge for Good Chaos, Edward Berger for Nine Hours, and Matthew James Wilkinson for Stigma Films.
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The Ballad of a Small Player by Lawrence Osborne
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