After decades working alongside Sean Baker as a producer and co-writer, Shih-Ching Tsou steps behind the camera for the first time in 21 years (and first time ever as a solo director) with Left-Handed Girl, a return to Taiwan for the filmmaker that makes for a sweet and layered homecoming. With Baker himself on co-writing, producing, and editing duties, it feels a lot like his earlier work, a vibrant and honest look at life at the margins – this time in Taipei rather than the US – though it does lack the raw power and big laughs of Baker’s own best directorial efforts.
Revolving mostly around Taipei’s bustling and competitive night markets, Left-Handed Girl focuses in on the Cheng family, from mother Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai) who is attempting to obtain some sort of financial independence by opening up a noodle stand in the market to her traditionalist parents to her two polar opposite daughters. These are surly college-aged I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma), who has her own night market job selling legal highs in skimpy outfits, and the outrageously adorable five-year-old I-Jing (Nina Ye), the left-handed girl of the title who starts stealing from her neighbours after being told by her grouchy grandfather that a left hand is a Devil Hand.
From the superstitious traditions to the inner workings of the night market to a growing obsession with saving face, Left-Handed Girl is always rooted in the specifics of its setting, which is both immersive and alienating, its characters’ decision-making processes often pretty hard to relate to. Both Shu-Fen and I-Ann have a frustrating habit of making bad decisions and then refusing to actually look at those decisions and their consequences directly, which can sometimes feel affectingly realistic but also borders on the irritating and repetitive.
As a family unit, though, they’re compelling, mixing sourness, spice, and sweet between the three of them with sharp, witty, and gently funny writing and a trio of fine performances – what Tsou manages to conjure from the very young Ye as I-Jing is genuinely remarkable. It’s an authenticity enhanced by the documentary-style handheld camera work that, while not being an aesthetic I particularly enjoy, does fit this deeply grounded tale.
A fun but undeniably limited score completes this world, one which Tsou fills with struggle and everyday frustrations but also kindness, with many of Shu-Fen’s fellow night market traders going out of their way to keep little I-Jing safe and happy. It’s an ode to a very specific community that, while a little overlong and muted in its overall power, is delivered with an earnest love for its characters that is mostly infectious.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 