Few things in any culture carry as much absurdity and power as its superstitions. 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; the devil’s influence, he claims.
As I-Jing gazes upon her limb with worry, a new bond forms between her and her so-called sinister hand while she adjusts to city life. Shot entirely with iPhones, debut solo director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, evokes the frenetic energy and sensory immersion of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters cover the glass windows of a pawn shop; the cheerful tune of trash-collecting trucks fills the air; the easy ping-pong of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; lush trees against aged structures that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a vibrant, humid city. It’s less a tribute 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 delivering a masterpiece of a film.
Family Dynamics and Inner Conflicts
The drama, 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. Thoughtful mom Shu-Fen has set up a night market noodles stand, and the volatile 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 very charming Nina Ye, begins 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 forbidden hand, distinguishing a good hand that does what’s required and the other that pursues what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. 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 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 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 separate planets, 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 unsteady 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 uniquely hers to feel.
A feeling of responsibility is deftly woven 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 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 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 balances of an innocent child absorbing the financial realities and unfamiliar forces – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s hijinks, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s bickering – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a considered 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.
Climactic Scenes and Central Ideas
By the dramatic penultimate 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 revelations are good – by that point, it’s like discovering a shocking, 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 handed down 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 neat lesson immediately follows, or that there will be a sinister influence to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just awakens 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 November 14 and on digital services from 28 November.
