Left-Handed Girl

Left-Handed Girl, the first solo directorial feature by Shih-Ching Tsou, is a film that manages to feel both intimate and sprawling, weaving the struggles of three generations of women into the pulsating rhythms of Taipei’s night markets. Co-written, edited, and co-produced by longtime collaborator Sean Baker, the film bears the unmistakable traces of their shared creative language — raw neorealism, street-level energy, and an empathy for those living on society’s margins. Yet, this is no derivative exercise. It is unmistakably Shih-Ching Tsou’s own work, informed by her Taiwanese heritage and by the memories of small cruelties handed down through family traditions. What begins as a tale of survival quickly blossoms into a layered study of shame, resilience, and defiance, anchored by three compelling performances that breathe life into the harsh realities of everyday struggle.

The story opens with a kaleidoscopic view of Taipei through the eyes of little I-Jing, played with luminous energy by Nina Ye. At only five years old, she becomes both the film’s heartbeat and its most haunting mirror. Her mother, Shu-Fen (portrayed with remarkable weariness and grace by Janel Tsai), has returned to the city after years away, dragging her daughters into a cramped apartment that already feels too small. With little more than determination, Shu-Fen rents a stall in the local night market, hoping her noodle business will cover expenses, though debts and family obligations weigh heavily on her shoulders. The eldest daughter, I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma, in a magnetic screen debut), once a top student, is now disillusioned, working as a “betel nut beauty” and engaging in a toxic affair with her boss. Together, the trio form a fragile family unit, constantly clashing yet somehow bound together in a solidarity forged under pressure.

What distinguishes Left-Handed Girl from countless dramas of hardship is the way it sees the city through I-Jing’s perspective. Shih-Ching Tsou and cinematographers Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao shoot much of the action at her height, filtering Taipei’s neon-soaked chaos through her innocent curiosity. The child’s sense of wonder is tinged with menace; after her grandfather (Akio Chen) scolds her for eating with her left hand, branding it “the devil’s hand,” she begins to believe it has a will of its own. Her left-handedness becomes a metaphor for inherited shame, a stigma she internalizes until she starts to use that “devil hand” to shoplift and act out, reasoning with the impeccable logic of a child that it is not she who sins but the hand itself. The scenes of I-Jing struggling to draw or eat with her right hand are as heartbreaking as they are absurd, a reminder of how superstition and patriarchy inscribe themselves onto the smallest bodies.

At the center of this storm, Shu-Fen tries to preserve dignity in the face of humiliation. Janel Tsai captures a woman who has endured too much yet refuses to crumble, even as she shoulders the cost of her estranged husband’s funeral and faces judgment from her own mother (Xin-Yan Chao), a matriarch whose favoritism toward her son underscores the deep misogyny still embedded in Taiwanese family structures. There is a particularly devastating sequence at the grandmother’s sixtieth birthday party, where secrets and grudges erupt into a cacophony of recriminations. Shih-Ching Tsou directs the scene with the controlled chaos of a Mike Leigh ensemble blowout, the handheld camera circling as generations collide, each woman’s unspoken grievances suddenly given voice. If the film leans toward melodrama here, it does so with a raw emotional authenticity that feels earned.

I-Ann’s journey provides another piercing layer. Shih-Yuan Ma, discovered by Shih-Ching Tsou on Instagram, delivers a performance that oscillates between brittle aggression and startling vulnerability. Her I-Ann lashes out at Shu-Fen with the spite of youth, yet softens when caring for her little sister. The frustration of thwarted ambition—her abandoned dream of university, her descent into sexualized labor—becomes the channel through which Shih-Ching Tsou examines how systemic misogyny corrodes female potential. The way I-Ann hides behind her long hair and skimpy uniforms, weaponizing her body for survival, is presented without judgment but with an acute sense of sorrow.

Despite its weight, Left-Handed Girl is never joyless. Shih-Ching Tsou threads humor and tenderness throughout the story. The flirtatious kindness of Johnny (Brando Huang), Shu-Fen’s neighboring vendor who sells cheap cleaning gadgets with relentless cheer, provides moments of levity. His awkward attempts at romance — constantly rebuffed by Shu-Fen’s pride — highlight both the resilience and the loneliness of a woman determined not to be pitied. Even the film’s more surreal touches, like the sudden introduction of a meerkat into the household, are handled with the same mix of whimsy and precariousness that defines life in a city where stability is never guaranteed.

Shot entirely on an iPhone, the film embraces its limitations and transforms them into strengths. The saturated colors of the markets, the blurred streaks of mopeds racing through traffic, the close quarters of a suffocating apartment — all are rendered with a tactile immediacy that pulls the viewer into the chaos of Taipei. The editing by Sean Baker, fast and jagged yet deeply attuned to rhythm, keeps the multiple storylines balanced, never allowing the narrative to collapse under its own weight. It is in these restless shifts of tone — from comedy to tragedy, from childlike mischief to adult despair — that Shih-Ching Tsou asserts her voice.

What lingers after the credits is not simply the spectacle of hardship but the resilience of women who refuse to disappear, even when crushed by tradition and circumstance. Shu-Fen’s exhaustion, I-Ann’s rebellion, I-Jing’s innocent defiance of her so-called “devil hand” — together they form a triptych of survival in a society that often denies them space. Shih-Ching Tsou, returning to directing after more than two decades, has delivered a debut that feels lived-in and urgent, a film that honors the lineage of her collaborations with Sean Baker while carving out her own cinematic identity. Left-Handed Girl is messy, vibrant, occasionally overwhelming — but so is the life it depicts.

The film is less about the stigma of a left hand than about the courage to use it anyway. Watching I-Jing scamper through the night market, mischievous and unbowed, you sense Shih-Ching Tsou’s deeper message: that even inherited shame can be turned into an act of quiet rebellion. For all its melodrama and chaos, Left-Handed Girl stands as a moving testament to the endurance of women navigating a world designed to diminish them. It makes you laugh, ache, and flinch — often in the same breath — and in doing so, it affirms cinema’s power to reflect the small tragedies and fleeting triumphs that define ordinary lives.

Left-Handed Girl
Directed by Shih-Ching Tsou
Written by Shih-Ching Tsou, Sean Baker
Produced by Shih-Ching Tsou, Sean Baker, Mike Goodridge
Starring  Janel Tsai, Shih-Yuan Ma, Nina Ye, Brando Huang, Akio Chen, Xin-Yan Chao
Cinematography : Ko-Chin Chen, Tzu-Hao Kao
Edited by Sean Baker
Production companies : Good Chaos, Cre Film, Le Pacte
Distributed by Le Pacte (France), Netflix (United States), Le Pacte (France)
Release dates : May 15, 2025 (Cannes), November 14, 2025 (United States), September 17, 2025 (France)
Running time : 109 minutes

Seen on September 9 2025 at the Deauville International Center

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