Rarely do elements in any culture carry as much ridiculousness and potency as its superstitions. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a sweet five-year-old who has just moved back to Taipei with her mother and elder sibling. She gets direct personal experience when her grandfather scolds her for using her left hand for everything – it’s not natural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.
As I-Jing stares at her hand with concern, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called sinister hand while she navigates city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, evokes the frenetic energy and sensory immersion of Taipei. Bright red Chinese characters adorn 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; lush trees against aged structures that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a bustling, humid city. It’s less a tribute from a fan as it is a dedication to a place known by heart. Tsou combines the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the splinters of imperfect people – tenderly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a masterpiece of a film.
Family Dynamics and Personal Struggles
The story, Taiwan’s entry for best foreign language film at the Oscars, starts with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a rebuild stage. Thoughtful mom Shu-Fen has set up a night market noodles stand, and the volatile I-Ann has left high school 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, starts a new school and, with the curiosity only a child can have, experiments with the potential of this newly anointed devil hand.
As she begins stealing trinkets at the night market with the cursed limb, distinguishing 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 former husband’s debts; I-Ann feels relegated 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.
Cinematic Craft and Emotional Depth
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, expertly lands us onto each family member’s individual worlds, with many shots capturing 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 unsteady and beat abrupt. The camera sweeps above as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights shimmering in the heat, bringing an boundless feeling of freedom with a pain that’s uniquely hers to feel.
A feeling of responsibility is deftly woven into each dilemma, as well as the loneliness that comes with it – it’s at once intimate and saddening to see how duty is often a solitary experience. We see it when I-Jing tries in sincerity to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann lays in bed after being scorned at an ex-classmate’s motel party. Meanwhile, Shu-Fen struggles 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.
Lighter Moments and Character Portrayals
There are also moments of levity and fun, especially with the grandma’s flashes of indignation, 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 innocent child absorbing the financial realities and unknown entities – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s antics, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s bickering – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a considered 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 soap opera-like second-to-last dinner scene, the clan has developed big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting humiliated in front of an audience. And the disclosures 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 lose face: which disgraces are honorable, which are self-serving, and what should be handed down from one generation to the next?
Some of these bombs are left unexcavated after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you wanting more – but perhaps also realizing that blowing it all up doesn’t mean closure or a neat lesson 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.
- Release Information: The film is available in select cinemas on 14 November and on digital services from 28 November.