Left-Handed Girl Review – Striking Taiwanese Family Drama is a Real Marvel

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 recently relocated back to Taipei with her mother and elder sibling. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather admonishes 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 appendage with concern, a new bond forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she adjusts to city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, first-time director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, evokes the frenetic energy and sensory experience of Taipei. Vibrant crimson 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 grimy buildings that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a vibrant, humid city. It’s not so much a love letter from a fan as it is a dedication to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the complexities of imperfect people – tenderly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a masterpiece of a film.

Family Dynamics and Personal Struggles

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. Pensive mom Shu-Fen has established a night market noodles stand, and the volatile 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 utterly delightful Nina Ye, starts a new school and, with the wonder only a child can have, tests out the potential of this newly labeled devil hand.

As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the cursed limb, separating a good hand that does what’s expected and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film portrays the complexities between what a person feels obligated 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, skillfully places us onto each family member’s individual worlds, with many shots recording the frisky and charming rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re at the same height with I-Jing as she makes her first pilfering, the adrenaline rushing with a camera shaky 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 sense of duty is expertly integrated into each dilemma, 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 sincerity 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.

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 delight with the world. Ye, who is left-handed in real life, expertly balances of an innocent child absorbing the economic pressures and unfamiliar forces – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s antics, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s bickering – 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 prohibitive 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 developed 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 uncovering a juicy, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to lose face: which shames are noble, which are indulgent, and what should be handed down from one generation to the next?

Some of these revelations are left unexcavated after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you wanting more – but perhaps also realizing that blowing it all up doesn’t mean closure or a tidy adage immediately follows, or that there will be a devil’s hand to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just awakens to another day, and, a little freer (having lost a little face), so do you.

• Availability: Left-Handed Girl is available in certain theaters on November 14 and on digital services from November 28.