Film Review – Left-Handed Girl

November 27th, 2025 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

Left-Handed Girl (2025) marks the solo directing debut of Shih-Ching Tsou. She previously co-directed Take Out (2004) with Sean Baker and has since helped produced his films from Tangerine (2015) through Red Rocket (2021). With this latest release, the two have switched roles, in a way, with Tsou taking the director’s chair and Baker co-writing the screenplay (with Tsou) as well as taking editing duties. We can see immediately that the two share similar stylistic and thematic preferences, as we once again visit characters living on the margins trying to make ends meet. There are shades of The Florida Project (2017). And like Tangerine, the entire film was shot on an iPhone to create a gritty, down-to-Earth visual aesthetic. 

But the success of Left-Handed Girl isn’t because of Tsou’s long collaboration with Baker. She constructs the narrative with an identity all its own, bringing us to Taipei to explore family, culture, tradition, and the stresses of big city life. We’re introduced to a family of three: Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai), and her daughters I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) and I-Jing (Nina Ye). Shu-Fen relocates the family to Taipei, where she has found a job at a night market stall. I-Jing is the youngest daughter. When she is not at school or helping at the stall, she wonders around the night market on her own. I-Ann is the elder sibling, who was once a straight A student but has since dropped out of school. She helps with money by working at a separate store but frequently comes to assist Shu-Fen. Right away, we sense tension within the family, especially between Shu-Fen and I-Ann. Shu-Fen is tired of I-Ann’s rebellious nature, and I-Ann has grown weary of her mother’s nagging. This comes to a head when I-Ann learns of her mother helping their ill father (who ran away when I-Ann was younger) with his financial affairs.  

Right off the bat, we see Tsou confronting the social and familial traditions that have operated against these characters – specifically, the patriarchal norms. Despite being mistreated, Shu-Fen still feels an obligation to help her husband. This upsets her mother, even though she clearly shows favor to Shu-Fen’s brother compared to her sisters. Shu-Fen states that she has worked hard to provide for I-Jing and I-Ann and wants to see them happy, but her version of “Happiness” involves them getting married. Marriage and family are major expectations in this world, but it’s revealed that having a son is far more preferred because it dictates how wealth and inheritance are distributed. The title of the film – “Left-Handed Girl” – is a reference to I-Jing’s grandfather disapproving of her using her left hand, claiming that it is “The Devil’s Hand.” This confuses and alarms I-Jing, who then believes that anything she does wrong with her non-dominate hand (like stealing) is the work of the devil. All these social constraints wears the family down. Contentment and peace are near impossible because the system is rigged against them.

Based on what I described, we would think that this is a dreary downer of a story. In fact, the opposite is true. This is a lively, energetic experience. Life comes bursting in almost every aspect. The night market is a hub of hustle and bustle. The cinematography (Ko-Chin Chen, Tzu-Hao Kao) keeps the camera at low, handheld angles (about the same eyeline as I-Jing), flying down corridors and around people with breathless speed. Often, characters travel around the city on scooters, allowing us to get a good view of buildings, streetlights, and neon billboards passing in the background. Baker’s editing has a bounce, skipping around with an almost musical-like rhythm. Shu-Fen’s stall has tons of texture and atmosphere, with customers enjoying their food, Shu-Fen cooking away on the stove, and her daughters running in circles to keep things humming along. Even though the themes are serious, the color and vibrancy of Tsou’s approach balance it all out.

The entire cast provide grounded, naturalistic performances. Janel Tsai plays Shu-Fen as though she is hanging on by a thread. The pressure of raising a family as well as bearing the brunt of her own mother’s disapproval has left her exhausted. Her relationship with fellow night market worker Johnny (Teng-Hui Huang) seems born out of desperation to feel any kind of joy. Nina Ye is adorable as I-Jing. Her wide-eyed stare and sense of wonder make the character impossible to dislike. But the big standout is Shih-Yuan Ma as I-Ann. Making her big-screen debut, Shih-Yuan turns in a complicated, emotionally powerful performance. It would be easy to be taken aback by I-Ann’s combative personality, but Shih-Yuan wins us over. The more we learn about I-Ann, the more we see her vulnerabilities. She is a complex character, filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. But it all stems from an understandable place – her rocky history with Shu-Fen, her unending love for I-Jing, and the unfair judgements of society against women. 

All these narrative threads converge at a birthday party late into the runtime. This scene is the one lackluster moment in Left-Handed Girl. Leading up to it, the tension was palpable between the characters. Conversations routinely burst into arguments, sometimes in public settings. It’s at the birthday party that the anger boils over and surprise twists are brought to light. And as a result, the scene feels the most melodramatic. Melodrama is not necessarily a bad thing, when done right it can amplify emotions into the stratosphere. The problem in this instance is that – tonally – it doesn’t fit in with everything that leads up to it. The realism we were accustomed to gets pushed aside in favor of big speeches and loud gestures. Obviously, this is the point where repressed feelings are finally let out into the open. However, the construction of the sequence, especially the blocking and arrangement of characters, is too stagey and exaggerated.

Despite its second half issues, I found Left-Handed Girl to be an entertaining and emotionally resonant experience. Shih-Ching Tsou immerses us in a place and culture with tons of empathy and heart. She finds the humanity in these characters and uses that to draw us in. Even though they may live far away from us, we share the same hopes, dreams, fears, disappointments and frustrations. The film shows that regardless of where we come from, we are a lot more alike than we realize.

Featured, Janel Tsai, Ko-Chin Chen, Left-Handed Girl, Nina Ye, Red Rocket, Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou, Shih-Yuan Ma, Take Out, Tangerine, Teng-Hui Huang, The Florida Project, Tzu-Hao Kao