Oscar-winning director Sean Baker's long-time producer Shih-Ching Tsou, who has also co-directed Take Out (2004) with him, makes her debut as a solo director with Left-Handed Girl. Set in Taipei and filled with pop colours, brittle women and an adorable girl, the 2025 production is a winner.
Five-year-old I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma), her mother Shu-Fen (Janet Tsai) and sister I-Jing (Nina Ye) relocate from the countryside to Taipei. Shu-Fen had left the city years ago and has returned with very little money - she is estranged from her husband - and family secrets.
Shu-Fen sets up a noodle stall at a night market. I-Jing finds work at one of the Taiwanese capital's many betel nut stands, where attractive women are used to hawk products. The sexualisation of young women at workplaces - one of Baker's themes in his own movies - is also one of the concerns of Left-Handed Girl. I-Jing's relationship with her boyfriend and her precarious manner suggest a woman living on the edge.
Shu-Fen is fraught too, always worrying about money and about keeping up appearances before her wealthier parents and sisters. Only young I-Ann, who always has a ready smile and a spring in her step, seems to be free of worries, until her grandfather tells her that her left-handedness is forbidden by tradition.
I-Ann's use of the "Devil's Hand", apart from being a symbol of the orthodoxy that has damaged her mother and sister, is also the source of adventures, including one revolving around a meerkat. I-Ann's innocence is a counterweight as well as a liberating factor, bringing sunshine to the dark corners and producing a smile even when situations get out of control.
Left-Handed Girl is available on Netflix. Baker and Tsou have co-written the heart-melting film. Baker has also edited Left-Handed Girl, bringing to the narrative a familiar lived-in style that is highly attentive to the small moments and the big revelations.
Taipei's colourful streets serve as a cheerful backdrop for the often emotionally heavy and bruising experiences of the grown-up women. Shot on an iPhone, the 109-minute movie is an intimate, deeply felt chronicle of a family trying to stay afloat while being buffeted by economic distress, family tensions and the burden of past traumas.
The hand-held camerawork sucks viewers right into the experiences of its principal characters. When the camera is on Shih-Yuan Ma's open and trusting face, it's impossible to look away.
There are times when it appears that Ma has no idea that she is being filmed. Nina Ye is very good too as the cynical sibling walking around with an open wound but also immense love for I-Ann.