Few things in any society carry as much absurdity and power 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 warns her for using her left hand for everything – it’s not natural, he insists; the devil’s influence, he claims.
As I-Jing stares at her hand with concern, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she adjusts to city life. Shot entirely with iPhones, debut solo director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the dynamic vibe and sensory experience of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters adorn 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 aged structures that nearly evoke the scent the specific essence of a bustling, wetter city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a devotional to a place known by heart. Tsou combines the vivid glimpses of the city with the complexities of flawed individuals – poignantly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a triumph of a film.
Family Relationships and Personal Struggles
The drama, Taiwan’s entry 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 established a night market noodles stand, and the unpredictable 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, starts a new school and, with the curiosity only a child can have, experiments with the potential of this newly labeled devil hand.
As she begins stealing trinkets at the night market with the cursed limb, distinguishing a good hand that does what’s expected and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou gracefully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film delineates the intricacies 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 move forward; I-Jing is told to be seen and not heard.
Cinematic Craft 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 individual worlds, 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 shaky and beat staccato. The camera pans overhead as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights shimmering in the heat, bringing an expansive feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone to feel.
A sense of duty is deftly woven into each dilemma, as well as the loneliness 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 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 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 Character Portrayals
There are also touches of humor 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 left-handed in real life, expertly 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 arguments – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a thoughtful portrait of an sharp teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an undeniable 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 humiliated in front of an audience. And the disclosures are good – 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 disgraces are noble, which are self-serving, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?
Some of these bombs are left unexcavated after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you wanting more – but perhaps also realizing that airing everything doesn’t mean closure 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 freer (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Release Information: Left-Handed Girl is released in certain theaters on November 14 and on digital services from November 28.
