Rarely do elements in any culture carry as much absurdity and potency as its superstitions. This Taiwanese drama introduces us to I-Jing, a endearing five-year-old who has just moved back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. She gets direct personal experience when her grandfather warns her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; the devil’s influence, he claims.
As I-Jing gazes upon her hand with concern, a new connection forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she adjusts to city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the frenetic energy and sensory immersion of Taipei. Bright red Chinese characters cover 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 grimy buildings that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a vibrant, wetter city. It’s not so much a love letter from a fan as it is a devotional to a place known by heart. Tsou combines the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the complexities of flawed individuals – poignantly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a triumph of a film.
Family Relationships and Inner Conflicts
The story, Taiwan’s submission for best international feature film at the Oscars, begins with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a rebuild stage. 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, 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, separating a right hand that does what’s expected and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own dualities. Here, the film portrays the complexities 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 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.
Visual Storytelling and Emotional Resonance
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, skillfully places us onto each family member’s separate planets, with many shots recording 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 unsteady and beat staccato. The camera pans overhead as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights glistening in the heat, bringing an boundless feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone to feel.
A sense of duty is expertly integrated into each dilemma, as well as the isolation that comes with it – it’s at once personal 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.
Moments of Light 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 hijinks, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s bickering – 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.
Climactic Scenes 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 juicy, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to be shamed: which shames are honorable, which are self-serving, and what should be handed down from one generation to the next?
Some of these revelations are left unexcavated after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also understanding that airing everything 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 awakens to another day, and, a little lighter (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Release Information: Left-Handed Girl is available in certain theaters on 14 November and on streaming platforms from November 28.
