Few things in any culture carry as much ridiculousness and potency 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 older sister. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather warns her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.
As I-Jing examines her hand with concern, a new connection forms between her and her so-called sinister hand while she adjusts to city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, first-time director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, evokes the frenetic energy and sensory experience of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters overtake the glass windows of a pawn shop; the pleasant melody of garbage trucks fills the air; the fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; lush trees against grimy buildings that nearly evoke the scent the unique atmosphere of a vibrant, wetter city. It’s less a tribute from a fan as it is a devotional to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the vivid glimpses of the city with the complexities of imperfect people – tenderly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a masterpiece of a film.
Family Dynamics and Personal Struggles
The story, Taiwan’s submission for best foreign language film at the Oscars, begins with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a period of reconstruction. Thoughtful mom Shu-Fen has established a night market noodles stand, and the volatile I-Ann has dropped out and works at a betel nut stall, where she’s in a relationship with her boss. I-Jing, played by the utterly delightful Nina Ye, begins a new school and, with the wonder only a child can have, experiments with the potential of this newly labeled devil hand.
As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the forbidden hand, separating a good hand that does what’s required and the other that pursues what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own dualities. Here, the film delineates the intricacies between what a person feels obligated to and what she genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her trash ex-husband’s debts; I-Ann feels reduced to the role her mom wants her to play as she watches her peers advance; I-Jing is told to be seen and not heard.
Visual Storytelling and Emotional Resonance
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, skillfully lands us onto each family member’s separate planets, with many shots recording the lively and charming rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re eye-level 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 uniquely hers to feel.
A sense of duty is deftly woven into each conundrum, as well as the isolation that comes with it – it’s at once intimate and heartbreaking to see how duty is often a lonely journey. We see it when I-Jing tries in sincerity to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann rests in bed after being mocked at an ex-classmate’s motel party. Meanwhile, Shu-Fen scrambles to make rent, her own mom annoyed 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.
Lighter Moments and Character Portrayals
There are also moments of levity and playfulness, especially with the grandma’s flashes of indignation, time with a meerkat that becomes I-Jing’s pet, and I-Jing’s general delight with the world. Ye, who is a left-hander in real life, perfectly walks the tightrope of an young girl absorbing the financial realities and unknown entities – 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 acerbic teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an inescapable but unaffordable 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 sharply examines what it really means to be shamed: which disgraces are noble, 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 showdown, 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 sinister influence to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just wakes up to another day, and, a little freer (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Release Information: Left-Handed Girl is available in select cinemas on 14 November and on streaming platforms from 28 November.
