Few things in any culture carry as much absurdity 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 older sister. She gets direct personal experience when her grandfather admonishes 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 appendage with dismay, a new bond forms between her and her so-called sinister hand while she navigates city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, first-time director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the frenetic energy and sensory immersion of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters cover the glass windows of a pawn shop; the pleasant melody of garbage trucks fills the air; the easy ping-pong of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; verdant foliage against grimy buildings that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a bustling, wetter city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a dedication to a place known by heart. Tsou combines the vivid glimpses of the city with the splinters of flawed individuals – poignantly 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 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 unpredictable 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 very charming Nina Ye, starts a new school and, with the wonder only a child can have, tests out the potential of this newly anointed devil hand.
As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the forbidden hand, 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 untangle 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, skillfully places us onto each family member’s separate planets, with many shots recording the frisky and delightful 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 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 conundrum, as well as the isolation 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 sincerity 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 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 Performances
There are also touches of humor 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 balances of an young girl absorbing the economic pressures and unfamiliar forces – 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 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 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 lose face: which disgraces are honorable, which are indulgent, and what should be handed down from one generation to the next?
Some of these revelations are left unresolved after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you wanting more – but perhaps also understanding that airing everything doesn’t mean resolution or a neat lesson 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 lighter (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Release Information: Left-Handed Girl is released in certain theaters on November 14 and on streaming platforms from 28 November.
