The Straits Times / life!
CARELESS WHISPER
Apr 11, 2005

" LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD GETS WICKED "

Nannies beware, Evelyn Ng's nursery character reveals a dark side! Article by Sherwin Loh

Twisted and intense. That, in a nutshell, is how Evelyn Ng describes her new movie, A Wicked Tale. It's a short film based on the fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood.

"It's a tale of seduction and manipulation," says the 25-year old Fly Entertainment artiste in a phone interview last Friday.

"It's Little Red Riding Hood meets Boxing Helena," she explains helpfully.

A dark fantasy thriller, 1993's Boxing Helena (starring Julian Sands and Sherilyn Fenn) follows an obsessed doctor who kidnaps his ex-girlfriend and proceeds to amputate her arms and legs.

In this fairytale update, which is described on the film's website as a psycho-erotic re-imaginatio, Ng plays Beth, also known as Little Red Riding Hood. The Big Bad Wolf is played by Swedish rock musician Johan Ydstrand.

The film is directed by Singaporean Tzang Merwyn Tong, 25, who won a bronze award at Houston's WorldFest in 2003 for his debut movie, the teen-angst ridden e*Tzaintes.

A Wicked Tale will premiere next Saturday at the Singapore Film Festival and Tong is in talks with distributors to release it here and in Germany.

Ng says there are no sex scenes in the movie. "But there are some suggestions. You have to see it to find out," she emphasises in her soft, girlish voice.

She also had to wear blue coloured contacts during the filming, to give the character a more ethereal feel.

"They hurt my eyes, but never mind. It's the sacrifices we do for art," she continues with a laugh.

The local girl, born to an Irish mother and Chinese father, ditched her Singapore air stewardess job four years ago and started going for auditions.

While she lucked out on a role in the 2001 TV drama A War Diary, Media Corp later contacted her for small roles in cop drama Heartlanders and medical drama First Touch. Her break came when she took on the role of the sweet but spoilt and materialistic Melissa in teen drama Light Years in 2002.

After the second season wrapped last year, she started doing some modeling work for print ads.

Then came the chance to be in A Wicked Tale, which she auditioned for and won over the director.

"It's quite a challenging character to play as it was different from my typical teenie bopper roles," she says of the two-week shoot in Singapore.

This is not her debut screen performance at the Singapore International Film Festival.

Last year, she was in In The Outline, a student film by her younger brother Andrew Ng.

And in case you're wondering, no, he didn't get any special treatment and had to oay her to appear in it.

Declining to reveal her fee, she says, "It's quite nice as they had sponsors. The whole thing was entirely professional."

END