FOUR ASSASSINS
Sweet and Sour Productions
This week will see what is thought to be the first ever adaptation for the stage of a Hong Kong-made film.
Four Assassins – called Far Away Eyes when released here, but retitled by the US distributor – won several awards at North American film festivals in 2011.
Sweet and Sour Productions’ Candice Moore was then approached by director Stanley Orzel and producer Maria Orzel – with whom she had worked previously as an actor in another of their films, Lost For Words – and asked if she would be interested in directing a stage version of this claustrophobic drama-thriller set in a Hong Kong hotel suite.
The basis of the play is a tense reunion between four professional killers with deadly unfinished business to discuss. “Maria is producing the show, so she is working on everything behind the scenes. Stanley is the writer so he has been present at the readthrough and some rehearsals. He is open to adjusting his script to fit the actors, so the script has evolved during the rehearsal process,” says Moore.
The stage production, in English with Chinese surtitles, aims to capture the edge-of-your-seat atmosphere of the original film. The American title was retained, Moore says, because it has “more punch and power”.