Rarely do elements 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 older sister. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather warns 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 relationship forms between her and her so-called devil hand while she adjusts to city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the frenetic energy and sensory experience of Taipei. Bright red Chinese characters overtake the glass windows of a pawn shop; the pleasant melody of garbage trucks fills the air; the fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; lush trees against aged structures that nearly evoke the scent the unique atmosphere of a vibrant, humid city. It’s less a tribute from a fan as it is a dedication to a place deeply familiar. Tsou pairs the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the complexities of imperfect people – poignantly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a triumph of a film.
Family Dynamics and Inner Conflicts
The story, 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. 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 curiosity 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, distinguishing a good hand that does what’s expected and the other that pursues 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 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 Resonance
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, skillfully places 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 pilfering, the adrenaline rushing with a camera shaky and beat staccato. 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 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 personal and saddening to see how duty is often a lonely journey. We see it when I-Jing tries in sincerity 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 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.
Lighter Moments and Performances
There are also touches of humor 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 left-handed 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 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 inescapable but unaffordable emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.
Final Acts and Themes
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 discovering a juicy, painful secret about a close companion. 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 passed from one generation to the next?
Some of these revelations are left unresolved after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also understanding that blowing it all up doesn’t mean closure or a neat lesson 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: The film is released in select cinemas on 14 November and on digital services from November 28.
