Few things in any culture carry as much ridiculousness and potency as its traditional beliefs. This Taiwanese drama introduces us to I-Jing, a endearing five-year-old who has just moved back to Taipei with her mother and elder sibling. She gets direct personal experience when her grandfather warns her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.
As I-Jing examines her hand with concern, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called devil hand while she adjusts to city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the frenetic energy and sensory immersion of Taipei. Bright red Chinese characters overtake the glass windows of a pawn shop; the cheerful tune of garbage trucks fills the air; the fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; lush trees against aged structures that nearly make you smell the unique atmosphere of a vibrant, humid city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a devotional to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the vivid glimpses of the city with the splinters of imperfect people – poignantly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a masterpiece of a film.
Family Dynamics and Personal Struggles
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 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 in a relationship with her boss. I-Jing, played by the utterly delightful Nina Ye, starts a new school and, with the wonder 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 good hand that does what’s required and the other that pursues 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 truly wants: 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 move forward; I-Jing is told to be present but silent.
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 lively and charming rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re at the same height with I-Jing as she makes her first theft, 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 expansive feeling of freedom with a pain that’s uniquely hers to feel.
A sense of duty 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 lonely journey. We see it when I-Jing tries in earnest 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 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.
Lighter Moments and Character Portrayals
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 joy with the world. Ye, who is left-handed in real life, expertly walks the tightrope of an innocent child absorbing the economic pressures and unknown entities – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s hijinks, 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 prohibitive emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.
Climactic Scenes and Themes
By the dramatic penultimate dinner scene, the clan has developed 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 sharply examines what it really means to be shamed: which shames are noble, which are indulgent, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?
Some of these bombs are left unexcavated after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also understanding 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 wakes up to another day, and, a little freer (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Availability: The film is available in certain theaters on 14 November and on streaming platforms from 28 November.
