Exclusive: The Kirby Brothers on Collaborating with Scott Adkins on Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday

Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday sees the return of Mike Fallon (Scott Adkins) to action-comedy, this time around protecting the son of a mafia boss, saving a friend, and developing his relationship with his father. It’s full of high-pace madcap fight scenes and hilarious dialogue.

Also in the cast of Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday are Ray Stevenson, Sarah Chang, George Fouracres, Beau Fowler, Flamina Cinque, and Faisal Mohammed. The Kirby Brothers (George and Harry) directed the film, and it was written by Adkins and Stu Small.

“I think we crank things up a notch,” commented Harry, comparing it to the first Accident Man movie. “There’s some great action in the first one, but I think we’ve kind of upped the ante on that. We’ve got some amazing fights… we know that a lot of Scott fans are excited to see that kind of action.”

Capturing Action in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday

In a previous interview, Adkins discussed what it takes to capture all the action in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday, explaining that not only does it require great physical endurance, but it is also a large commitment from production with plenty of preparation.

“We very much like to shoot our action in a certain Hong Kong style. So, basically, very planned out. We don’t like shooting coverage. Sometimes action scenes just get shot. They’ll get the performance, then just do the fight over and over again, and then have three cameras pointed at it, and then see what they get. Whereas we are very much like one camera, sometimes two, but every shot is kind of planned out so it tells a story. It’s specific kicks here, jumps here, etcetera, etcetera. We did a lot of planning. We shot whole fights kind of roughly in gym space or rehearsal space and worked out the choreography, so we get to set, and the guys already know what they’re doing… and that just helps from our point of view,” explained Harry.

It also helps that their lead, Adkins, is well-versed in shooting action and is able to collaborate with them. “He’s a professional. He’s very well-versed in film language and knows how to shoot action, and knows how to direct action, so it’s very collaborative. Even right from when we came aboard and went through the script… he’s got so many films and knows what he’s talking about… it was great to learn from him,” said George.

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Collaborating on Script and Pacing of Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday

Part of the collaboration between The Kirby Brothers and Adkins was in the evolution of the script and the pacing of the film. For the script, Harry mentioned that they specifically talked about characters.

“We had a read and then gave our thoughts on character changes. Siu-ling is a bit of a different character than she originally was. And there were some extra scenes with Ray and stuff like that,” said Harry.

Then, the pacing of the film was another discussion. “The pacing is very important to us. We wanted the film to keep moving, and always feel like it was changing. That was kind of the main thing we did. We kind of moved things around and took some scenes out, so we could always be never really stopping too much. We went back to Stu, the writer, and Scott, and proposed the changes and said, ‘This is what we’re thinking.’ And then from their point of view, this is their baby as well… it’s our first feature, so it was great to inject some of our own ideas into it and help us develop our own style as well,” Harry continued.

“Pacing is very important to us, especially when we’re dealing with action. We want to make sure those fights are paced out in a way where they’re never too far from a cool bit of action or something interesting happening… there are a lot of fights. We’ve got 25 minutes’ worth of action in an hour-and-a-half movie… I think that can really make or break a film. You can have really great stuff in the film but if there’s a 35-minute period where you’re bored, then you know, it’s not easy on audiences. Getting the balance between drama and comedy and the action was definitely the biggest challenge,” added George.

Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday is available as of October 14, 2022, from Samuel Goldwyn Films.