Any way to surface mounting a through-hole resistor?
Yes, it's possible. If it happens, it must be true. 

One problem is the need to form the leads like that. Another is the large weight of the component on potentially small lands, this risks ripping the pads from the board if there are large vibration forces.

Consider instead an array of low power SMD resistors. Apart from being a standard component, these may have another advantage that you can spread them out or interleave with other components to lose the heat better.

A common technique where you need a high voltage resistor is to use several in series. Resistors do share their voltage drop nicely, unlike rectifier diodes or capacitors. It's sensible to make all the resistors equal, then the power and the voltage drop is shared equally. For instance, if you have 5 equal resistors, then each sees 20% of the total power, and 20% of the total voltage drop.