Left-Handed Girl
Shih-Ching Tsou’s solo debut feature is a vibrant portrait of a single mother and her two daughters struggling to survive on the streets of Taipei.
Street life: Shih-Yuan Ma and Nina Ye
Image courtesy of Netflix.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Sean Baker’s Tangerine was the first film shot entirely on an iPhone to reach a wide audience (and international acclaim). Since winning an Oscar for Anora (2025), Baker has returned to the format with his regular producer Shih-Ching Tsou, with the latter taking over the directorial reins. Together, they crafted the screenplay and co-produced Left-Handed Girl, setting the scene on the streets of Tsou’s city of birth, Taipei. Much like their other work (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket), the film exudes a kinetic immediacy and compassion for ordinary people clutching to the fringes of the mainstream. In spite of, or perhaps because of, its exotic setting, it is perhaps Sean Baker’s most accessible work to date.
Janel Tsai plays Shu-Fen, a single mother who moves to the bustling Taiwanese capital with her two daughters to set up a noodle stand at a night market. Consumed by debt, and not a few secrets, Shu-Fen struggles to make ends meet, to get her five-year-old, I-Jing (Nina Ye), to school every day, and to keep an eye on her teenage daughter I-Ann (Ma Shih-Yuan). It’s a hand-to-mouth existence and Shu-Fen’s parents, who live in Taipan, are not much help – maybe even the opposite.
Much of Left-Handed Girl focuses on the Taiwanese need “to save face,” and so Shu-Fen goes to great lengths to hide from her family that she is paying the medical bills of her estranged husband, who abandoned his family ten years earlier. Shu-Fen, subsisting on very little sleep (and it shows), is desperate to do the right thing, even as events seem to be escaping her control. I-Ann, who now works at a betel nut stand, flaunting her flesh to entice prospective customers, only holds her mother in the lowest regard, while I-Jing just looks on with those large inquisitive eyes, doing what she’s told. For I-Jing, the lively, neon-streaked streets of Taipei hold a sense of adventure, where anything might happen. This is very much a modern city, although I-Jing’s grandfather holds old-fashioned views and is aghast that I-Jing is left-handed. When she stays with him, he demands that she should use only her right-hand, as her left is the property of the Devil. And so I-Jing’s left hand takes on a life of its own…
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the depths of the Underworld are not far off from Tsou’s bedevilled protagonists. Everyone is trying to do the right thing, but as old values clash with the new, catastrophe is just around the corner. Even I-Ann, in spite of her rebellious disposition, can step up to the plate when the occasion demands, whereby Tsou and Baker’s story creeps up on one and ultimately sounds a surprisingly touching note. The scenes of everyday life are filled with visual wonder and energy, as poor I-Jing struggles to keep up with the adults. Of course, Nina Ye as I-Jing is the film’s selling point, and Tsou has magicked up a wonderful performance from her five-year-old actress, while her adult players fall into line behind her. The melodramatic, blackly comic finale recalls the early work of the Taiwanese Ang Lee, an apogee that has more than earned its stripes.
Cast: Shih-Yuan Ma, Janel Tsai, Nina Ye, Brando Huang, Akio Chen, Xin-Yan Chao, Teng-Hung Hsia.
Dir Shih-Ching Tsou, Pro Shih-Ching Tsou, Sean Baker and Mike Goodridge, Screenplay Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker, Ph Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao, Pro Des Genie Ko, Ed Sean Baker, Costumes Chiao-Ying Hsu, Sound Samuel Nacach and Sidney Hu.
Good Chaos/Cre Film/Le Pacte-Netflix.
108 mins. Taiwan/USA/UK/France. 2025. UK and US Rel: 28 November 2025. Cert. 15.
