Few things in any culture carry as much absurdity and potency as its traditional beliefs. 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 literal firsthand experience when her grandfather admonishes 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 worry, a new bond forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she navigates city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, first-time director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, summons the dynamic vibe and sensory experience of Taipei. Bright red Chinese characters cover the glass windows of a pawn shop; the cheerful tune of trash-collecting trucks fills the air; the fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; verdant foliage against aged structures that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a vibrant, 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 splinters of imperfect people – movingly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a triumph of a film.
Family Dynamics and Inner Conflicts
The story, Taiwan’s entry for best international feature film at the Oscars, begins with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a rebuild stage. 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 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 starts pocketing 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 duty-bound to and what she genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her trash ex-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.
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 frisky and delightful 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 shaky and beat staccato. The camera pans overhead 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 expertly integrated into each dilemma, as well as the isolation 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 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.
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 joy with the world. Ye, who is left-handed in real life, perfectly 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 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 Themes
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 close companion. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to be shamed: which disgraces are honorable, which are self-serving, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?
Some of these revelations are left unexcavated after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you wanting more – but perhaps also realizing 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: The film is available in certain theaters on 14 November and on streaming platforms from 28 November.
