Rarely do elements in any culture carry as much ridiculousness and potency as its superstitions. This Taiwanese drama 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; it’s the devil at work, he claims.
As I-Jing stares at her appendage 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 screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the frenetic energy 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 grimy buildings that nearly make you smell the unique atmosphere of a bustling, wetter city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a devotional to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the complexities of flawed individuals – movingly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a masterpiece of a film.
Family Dynamics and Personal Struggles
The drama, Taiwan’s submission for best foreign language film at the Oscars, starts with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a period of reconstruction. Pensive mom Shu-Fen has set up 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 very charming 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 forbidden hand, distinguishing a right hand that does what’s required 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 duty-bound 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.
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 individual worlds, with many shots recording the frisky and delightful rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re at the same height with I-Jing as she makes her first theft, the adrenaline rushing 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 sense of duty is deftly woven into each conundrum, as well as the isolation that comes with it – it’s at once personal 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 scorned 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 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 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 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 Themes
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 embarrassed in front of an audience. And the revelations 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 lose face: which shames are honorable, which are self-serving, and what should be passed 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 understanding that airing everything doesn’t mean resolution 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 lighter (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Release Information: Left-Handed Girl is available in select cinemas on November 14 and on streaming platforms from 28 November.
