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Rarely do elements in any society carry as much ridiculousness and potency as its superstitions. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a sweet five-year-old who has recently relocated back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. She gets direct personal experience when her grandfather admonishes her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.

As I-Jing gazes upon her appendage with dismay, a new relationship 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 frenetic energy and sensory immersion of Taipei. Bright red Chinese characters adorn 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 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 complexities of imperfect people – tenderly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a triumph of a film.

Family Relationships and Inner Conflicts

The drama, Taiwan’s submission for best foreign language film at the Oscars, starts with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a period of reconstruction. Pensive mom Shu-Fen has set up a night market noodles stand, and the unpredictable I-Ann has left high school and works at a betel nut stall, where she’s in a relationship with her boss. I-Jing, played by the very charming Nina Ye, starts 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 right 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 obligated to and what she genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t untangle 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 move forward; I-Jing is told to be present but silent.

Cinematic Craft 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 separate planets, with many shots capturing 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 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 uniquely hers 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 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 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.

Lighter Moments 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, perfectly walks the tightrope of an young girl absorbing the financial realities and unknown entities – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s hijinks, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s arguments – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a considered 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 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 revelations are good – by that point, it’s like uncovering a shocking, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to lose face: which disgraces are noble, which are indulgent, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?

Some of these bombs are left unresolved after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also understanding that airing everything doesn’t mean closure or a tidy adage immediately follows, or that there will be a sinister influence 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 available in certain theaters on 14 November and on streaming platforms from November 28.