Rarely do elements in any culture carry as much ridiculousness and power 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 unnatural, he insists; the devil’s influence, he claims.
As I-Jing stares at her limb with concern, a new bond forms between her and her so-called devil hand while she explores city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the dynamic vibe and sensory immersion 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; verdant foliage against aged structures that nearly evoke the scent the specific essence of a bustling, humid city. It’s not so much a tribute from a fan as it is a dedication to a place deeply familiar. Tsou pairs the vivid glimpses of the city with the complexities of imperfect people – movingly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a masterpiece of a film.
Family Relationships and Personal Struggles
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 period of reconstruction. Thoughtful mom Shu-Fen has established a night market noodles stand, and the volatile I-Ann has left high school 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 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 right hand that does what’s required and the other that pursues what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film portrays the complexities between what a person feels duty-bound to and what she truly wants: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her former 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 Depth
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, expertly places us onto each family member’s individual worlds, with many shots capturing the frisky and charming rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re eye-level with I-Jing as she makes her first theft, the adrenaline rushing with a camera unsteady and beat abrupt. 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 feeling of responsibility is expertly integrated into each dilemma, as well as the loneliness that comes with it – it’s at once intimate and heartbreaking to see how duty is often a solitary experience. We see it when I-Jing tries in earnest to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann rests 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 Performances
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 delight with the world. Ye, who is left-handed in real life, expertly walks the tightrope of an young girl absorbing the economic pressures 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 considered portrait of an sharp 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 soap opera-like second-to-last dinner scene, the clan has nurtured big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting embarrassed in front of an audience. And the disclosures are good – by that point, it’s like discovering a juicy, painful secret about a close companion. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to be shamed: which disgraces are honorable, which are indulgent, and what should be handed down from one generation to the next?
Some of these bombs are left unresolved after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also realizing that blowing it all up doesn’t mean resolution 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.
- Availability: Left-Handed Girl is available in select cinemas on November 14 and on digital services from 28 November.
