🔗 Share this article

Few things in any society carry as much ridiculousness and power as its traditional beliefs. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a sweet five-year-old who has recently relocated back to Taipei with her mother and elder sibling. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather warns her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; it’s evil, he claims.

As I-Jing examines her hand with worry, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she adjusts to city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, first-time director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, summons the dynamic vibe and sensory immersion of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters overtake the glass windows of a pawn shop; the cheerful tune of garbage trucks fills the air; the fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; verdant foliage against grimy buildings that nearly evoke the scent the unique atmosphere of a vibrant, humid city. It’s less a tribute from a fan as it is a devotional to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the splinters of flawed individuals – movingly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a triumph of a film.

Family Dynamics and Inner Conflicts

The drama, Taiwan’s submission for best international feature film at the Oscars, begins with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a period of reconstruction. Thoughtful mom Shu-Fen has set up a night market noodles stand, and the volatile I-Ann has dropped out and works at a betel nut stall, where she’s sleeping with her boss. I-Jing, played by the very charming Nina Ye, begins a new school and, with the wonder only a child can have, tests out the potential of this newly labeled devil hand.

As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the cursed limb, separating a right hand that does what’s required and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film delineates the intricacies between what a person feels duty-bound to and what she genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her former husband’s debts; I-Ann feels relegated to the role her mom wants her to play as she watches her peers move forward; I-Jing is told to be seen and not heard.

Visual Storytelling and Emotional Depth

Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, skillfully places us onto each family member’s individual worlds, with many shots capturing the frisky and charming rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re at the same height with I-Jing as she makes her first pilfering, the excitement building with a camera shaky and beat abrupt. The camera sweeps above as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights shimmering in the heat, bringing an expansive feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone to feel.

A feeling of responsibility is expertly integrated into each conundrum, as well as the isolation that comes with it – it’s at once intimate and saddening to see how duty is often a lonely journey. We see it when I-Jing tries in earnest to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann lays in bed after being mocked at an ex-classmate’s motel party. Meanwhile, Shu-Fen scrambles to make rent, her own mom irritated she needs help yet again. “A married daughter’s like water that’s poured out,” says the grandma; a son would have still been her responsibility.

Moments of Light and Character Portrayals

There are also moments of levity and fun, especially with the grandma’s bouts of anger, time with a meerkat that becomes I-Jing’s pet, and I-Jing’s general joy with the world. Ye, who is left-handed in real life, perfectly walks the tightrope of an young girl absorbing the financial realities and unfamiliar forces – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s antics, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s arguments – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a thoughtful portrait of an sharp teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an inescapable but prohibitive emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.

Final Acts and Central Ideas

By the dramatic second-to-last dinner scene, the clan has nurtured big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting humiliated in front of an audience. And the revelations are powerful – by that point, it’s like discovering a shocking, painful secret about a close companion. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to lose face: which shames are honorable, which are self-serving, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?

Some of these bombs are left unexcavated after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also realizing that blowing it all up doesn’t mean closure or a tidy adage immediately follows, or that there will be a devil’s hand to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just wakes up to another day, and, a little freer (having lost a little face), so do you.

• Availability: The film is released in certain theaters on November 14 and on streaming platforms from 28 November.