By Jason F. Johnson
Reviews Editor
FiRST : ASIA'S PREMIER MOVIE MAGAZINE
Jun Issue, 2005

What is a cult film? A cult film is quite simply a flick that you can't get out of your head. While most movies are instantly forgettable, a cult film will lodge in your memory and inspire a desire for repeated viewings. These moves are like drugs. Of all the local films we've seen, A Wicked Tale comes closest to being this sort of thing. It's so weird, so singular that you want to see it again to reassure yourself that you really did saw what you thought you saw.

It's an R-rated retelling of Little Red Riding Hood starring the Natalie Portman-esque local actress Evelyn Ng. She's not your average Red - indeed she's a murderous, psychopathic nymphomaniac - and her run-in with the Big Bad Wolf, a Nordic looker with Jesus hair, is perhaps not the sort of thing you'd like to inflict upon your children at bedtime. A Wicked Tale is all over the map stylistically: at times it imitates the look of a hand-cranked silent film from the 1920s, at other times it is pure cutting edge Takashi Miike. It's also very inconsistent tonally - there are grotesque visions of mayhem and murder, but there is also a nice little puppet show. At times it is difficult to tell what exactly Singapore director Tzang Merwyn Tong is up to - is this art, trash or trash art? - but whatever he's doing, we'd like to take another look.

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