Rarely do elements 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 older sister. She gets direct personal 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 gazes upon her hand with worry, a new connection forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she explores city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, first-time director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, evokes the dynamic vibe and sensory immersion of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters overtake the glass windows of a pawn shop; the pleasant melody of trash-collecting trucks fills the air; the fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; lush trees against grimy buildings that nearly evoke the scent the specific essence of a bustling, humid city. It’s not so much 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 – tenderly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a masterpiece of a film.
Family Relationships and Inner Conflicts
The drama, Taiwan’s submission for best international feature film at the Oscars, starts with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a rebuild stage. Thoughtful 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, begins 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 forbidden hand, separating a right hand that does what’s required and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film delineates 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 present but silent.
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 lively 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 shimmering in the heat, bringing an expansive 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 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 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 moments of levity and playfulness, 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 a left-hander in real life, expertly balances 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 considered portrait of an acerbic teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an inescapable but prohibitive emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.
Final Acts and Themes
By the dramatic penultimate 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 disclosures are powerful – by that point, it’s like discovering a shocking, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script sharply examines what it really means to lose face: which shames are honorable, which are indulgent, 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 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 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: The film is released in select cinemas on November 14 and on digital services from November 28.
