Could this be the biggest Hollywood movie shot in Macau, the Las Vegas of the East? What to know about The Ballad of a Small Player, starring Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton and Fala Chen, filming this summer
- Based on Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 novel of the same name, The Ballad of a Small Player stars Colin Farrell as an English con man passing himself off as a lord as he stays holed up in Macau
- Tilda Swinton and Fala Chen are also confirmed to star, with filming in Macau set for June to August, and extras wanted – particularly those with professional casino or hotel experience
It’s major kudos for this tiny city as it aims to raise its profile on the global stage. The city’s Cotai Strip includes the US-based casino resort brands MGM, Sands and Wynn; in pre-pandemic 2019, its gaming revenue was three times that of Las Vegas.
So what do we know about this big-budget Hollywood production spending the entire summer in Macau? Read on to find out more.
What is the plot of The Ballad of a Small Player?
Lawrence Osborne, a British author and journalist based in Bangkok, published his novel by the same name in 2014. “In Osborne’s feverish novel, the playing is done on the gambling tables of Macau by a tortured embezzler on the run,” wrote The New York Times, which included Ballad on its 100 Notable Books of 2014 list.
The protagonist is an English con man by the name of Doyle who is passing himself off as a lord – “a corrupt English lawyer who has escaped prosecution by fleeing to the East”, according to the novel’s synopsis. While in Macau, Doyle meets Dao-ming, described as “an enigmatic Chinese woman who appears to be a denizen of the casinos just like himself, and seems to offer him salvation in the form of both money and love”.
The novel has also been described as “part psychological thriller, part ghost story” and “resonant of classics by Dostoevsky and Graham Greene”.