The Left-Handed Girl Film Review – Impressive Taiwanese Family Drama is a Absolute Gem

Rarely do elements in any culture carry as much absurdity and potency 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 older sister. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather scolds her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.

As I-Jing stares at her hand with concern, a new bond 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, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, summons the dynamic vibe and sensory experience of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters adorn 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; verdant foliage against aged structures that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a vibrant, wetter city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a dedication to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the vivid glimpses of the city with the splinters of imperfect people – movingly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a masterpiece of a film.

Family Relationships and Personal Struggles

The story, Taiwan’s entry for best foreign language 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 sleeping 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 anointed devil hand.

As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the forbidden hand, 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 untangle 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, skillfully lands us onto each family member’s separate planets, with many shots capturing the frisky and delightful rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re eye-level 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 shimmering in the heat, bringing an boundless feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone to feel.

A feeling of responsibility is deftly woven into each dilemma, as well as the loneliness that comes with it – it’s at once personal 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 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 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 walks the tightrope of an young girl absorbing the economic pressures 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 thoughtful 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.

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 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 honorable, which are self-serving, and what should be handed down from one generation to the next?

Some of these bombs are left unresolved after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also realizing 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 awakens to another day, and, a little lighter (having lost a little face), so do you.

• Release Information: Left-Handed Girl is released in select cinemas on November 14 and on digital services from 28 November.