I recently wrote about the Taiwan’s Official Oscar Submission: Left-Handed Girl and its upcoming limited theatrical release in mid-November as well as Netflix release in late November. As I write this, the film currently has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 96% (based on 23 reviews). At the Cannes Film Festival, Left-Handed Girl won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution.
I saw the second screening of the film at the 48th Mill Valley Film Festival, which director Shih-Ching Tsou couldn’t make. This was my first time seeing a film at the festival in Mill Valley. I have usually seen the festival films in San Rafael at the Sequoia Cinema.
Left-Handed Girl is a film more than just about a left-handed young girl. The film covers the trials of single mother Chu-Fen (abandoned by her deadbeat husband) and her two daughters. The first daughter, I-Ann, is a young adult in her late teens or early twenties (working as a betel nut beauty), The second daughter, I-Jing, the left-handed girl, is in elementary school and has moved back to Taipei. We witness the dysfunction in the extended family with the grandfather scolding I-Jing for using her left hand – as he puts it – “the devil’s hand.” The grandmother has gotten involved in a questionable business deals, and the adult siblings fight about money.
All the characters are fairly well developed. You get to see a struggling family trying to make ends meet. You also get to see Chu-Fen, I-Ann and I-Jing unsure of themselves while each making questionable personal and family decisions. We see the commonly depicted Taipei night market environment while Chu-Fen struggles to make a living with her noodle stand.
Left-Handed Girl reminded me of one of my favorite Ang Lee films, Eat Drink Man Woman. I would say Lee’s film is better, though. The young girl Nina Ye who played I-Jing did a fantastic job. Janel Tsai and Shi-Yuan Ma also deliver very strong performances. Director Shih-Ching Tsou, this being her first directorial debut of a feature length film, is someone that we will definitely be hearing from in the future.
I expected, based on the title of the film, more of an emphasis on the left handedness of I-Jing, rather than the tale of a struggling Taiwanese family. Being Taiwan’s official Oscar submission for Best International Feature Film, my expectations for the film were high. For the most part, Left-Handed Girl met them.
The Mill Valley Film Festival continues until October 12.
