Cirrus@Austlit

'Imagine the characters from a classic film noir - flawed private eye, femme fatale and underground crime lord - meet the superhuman heroines of a Hong Kong Wuxia sword-fighting spectacular. Set the action in the Chinatown of a futuristic Australian city and bring in multi-media landscapes, acrobatics, parkour, trampoline, dance, circus and martial arts, and you might have something close to the on-stage spectacle of Stalker's "Shanghai Lady Killer".

The plot follows an Australian detective, hired to track down a mysterious female Chinese assassin. Her mission is to kill the Mayor, a successful and popular migrant from Shanghai who is in the midst of his re-election campaign. A dark secret looms over the action, threatening to tear the city apart. Popularised by the Shaw Brothers studios in the 1960s and revisited in Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - the Wuxia genre is the main inspiration for this contemporary Australian stage production. Through its fast-paced plot, powerful female characters and aerial and ground-based physical theatre, "Shanghai Lady Killer" also explores the Australian fascination with and fear of China. Source: www.brisbanefestival.com.au/ (Sighted 17/08/2010).