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Few things in any society carry as much ridiculousness and potency as its traditional beliefs. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a sweet five-year-old who has just moved back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather warns 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 concern, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called devil hand while she explores city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, along 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 trash-collecting 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, humid city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a dedication to a place known by heart. Tsou combines the vivid glimpses of the city with the splinters of flawed individuals – poignantly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a masterpiece of a film.

Family Relationships and Personal Struggles

The story, Taiwan’s entry for best foreign language film at the Oscars, begins with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a rebuild stage. Thoughtful mom Shu-Fen has set up a night market noodles stand, and the volatile I-Ann has left high school and works at a betel nut stall, where she’s sleeping with her boss. I-Jing, played by the utterly delightful Nina Ye, begins a new school and, with the curiosity only a child can have, tests out the potential of this newly labeled devil hand.

As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the cursed limb, distinguishing a good hand that does what’s expected and the other that pursues what the heart desires, Tsou gracefully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film delineates the complexities between what a person feels duty-bound 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 advance; I-Jing is told to be seen and not heard.

Visual Storytelling 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 individual worlds, with many shots recording the frisky and delightful 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 unsteady and beat abrupt. The camera sweeps above as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights glistening in the heat, bringing an boundless feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone 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 heartbreaking to see how duty is often a lonely journey. We see it when I-Jing tries in sincerity to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann rests in bed after being mocked 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.

Moments of Light and Performances

There are also touches of humor and fun, especially with the grandma’s flashes of indignation, time with a meerkat that becomes I-Jing’s pet, and I-Jing’s general delight with the world. Ye, who is left-handed in real life, expertly balances 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 thoughtful portrait of an acerbic teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an undeniable but prohibitive emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.

Climactic Scenes and Themes

By the soap opera-like second-to-last dinner scene, the clan has nurtured big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting embarrassed in front of an audience. And the disclosures are powerful – by that point, it’s like discovering a shocking, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to be shamed: which disgraces are noble, which are indulgent, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?

Some of these bombs are left unexcavated after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also realizing that airing everything doesn’t mean closure or a neat lesson immediately follows, or that there will be a sinister influence to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just awakens to another day, and, a little freer (having lost a little face), so do you.

• Availability: The film is released in certain theaters on 14 November and on streaming platforms from November 28.