Few things in any society 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 admonishes her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; the devil’s influence, he claims.
As I-Jing stares at her limb with worry, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called sinister hand while she explores city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, summons the frenetic energy and sensory experience of Taipei. Bright red 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; lush trees against grimy buildings that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a bustling, humid city. It’s less a tribute 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 flawed individuals – poignantly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a masterpiece of a film.
Family Relationships and Personal Struggles
The drama, Taiwan’s submission 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 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, tests out 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 required and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou gracefully reflects each character’s own dualities. Here, the film portrays the complexities between what a person feels obligated to and what she truly wants: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her former 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.
Visual Storytelling and Emotional Resonance
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 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 excitement building with a camera shaky and beat abrupt. The camera pans overhead as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights glistening in the heat, bringing an boundless 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 loneliness that comes with it – it’s at once intimate and heartbreaking 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 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 Performances
There are also touches of humor and playfulness, especially with the grandma’s flashes of indignation, 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, perfectly walks the tightrope of an young girl absorbing the financial realities 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 thoughtful 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 Central Ideas
By the dramatic second-to-last 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 keenly examines what it really means to lose face: which disgraces are honorable, 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 confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you wanting more – but perhaps also realizing that airing everything doesn’t mean closure or a tidy adage 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: Left-Handed Girl is released in certain theaters on November 14 and on streaming platforms from 28 November.
