‘Left-Handed Girl’ is an Exploration of Shame and Generational Differences in Modern Taiwan

For Taiwanese American filmmaker Shih-Ching Tsou, making the film meant reflecting on her own experiences and drawing on details from her family’s story.

Shih-Yuan Ma as I-Ann, Nina Ye as I-Jing and Janel Tsai as Shu-Fen in Left-Handed Girl. Photo Courtesy of Netflix.

The opening shots of the new film Left-Handed Girl focuses on the expansive Taipei skyline as twenty-something I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma), five-year-old I-Jing (Nina Ye) and their mother Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai) take in the juxtapositions between new, sparkling skyscrapers and older infrastructure holding everything up. It’s the perfect introduction to the film, which hones in on shame, generational differences and tradition in modern Taiwan. 

Directed by Shih-Ching Tsou, the Taiwanese American filmmaker who previously co-directed Take Out alongside Anora’s Sean Baker, Left-Handed Girl follows the three women trying to survive and provide for one another while navigating expectations put on them. Early on in the film, young I-Jing is told by her grandfather that her left-handedness was evil and that the left hand belonged to the devil, inspiring the impressionable I-Jing to only use her left hand for “evil” acts, like petty shoplifting. 

Nina Ye as I-Jing in Left-Handed Girl. Photo: Left-Handed Girl Film Production Co, LTD.

That’s just the most obvious example of how Left-Handed Girl explores Taiwan's traditions and how they may scar a new generation. 

Tsou was inspired to write the film after her grandfather told her to stop using her left hand. “It’s not just that I remember what he told me, but he really gave me that sense of guilt and I felt like I did something wrong,” she explains. It wasn’t until she moved to New York for school and met her life-long collaborator Baker that she decided to spin that idea into a film. It took years to get the film off the ground, which finally had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. 

Tsou’s childhood in Taiwan also inspired much of the exploration of femininity and tradition: growing up, she was told to not stand out and to follow the expectations laid out for her. But after moving to America, she realized how limiting that was. The film is also a reflection of Tsou’s diasporic perspective: every time she visits, she notices how the older generations hold onto traditions even as younger folks try to get rid of outdated ones, like left-handed stigma.

Director Shih-Ching Tsou, Nina Ye as I-Jing and Shih-Yuan Ma as I-Ann on the set of Left-Handed Girl. Photo: Left-Handed Girl Film Production Co, LTD.

But it’s not just a serious film about the old clashing against the new. Part of the joy of watching Left-Handed Girl is the beautifully complex relationship between this family. Shu-Fen can never catch a break from her sisters or parents, who treat her like the family failure; I-Ann is an angry person and lashes out at her sister and mother, while also tenderly looking after them; I-Jing tries in vain to understand why her family acts the way they do and naively tries to fix things. It’s a detailed portrait of a family doing its best. 

Tsou says that all the characters are inspired by people she knew in Taiwan. “My mom, she has six siblings, so when I go to Taiwan, I see all the little details and they all become part of the film,” she explains, adding that she spent time going to Taipei’s night markets and chatting with all the different people there. “I put their stories into the script to make it feel more authentic. And I wanted to tell a Taiwanese story so it felt natural to put their stories in the film.”

Nina Ye as I-Jing and Shih-Yuan Ma as I-Ann in Left-Handed Girl. Photo: Left-Handed Girl Film Production Co, LTD.

Another big part of the family dynamic boils down to the incredible chemistry between the actresses. For Ma and Ye, who play I-Ann and I-Jing, it was important to build that relationship before the cameras began rolling. Ma explains that she never treated Ye like a child, instead she’d spend a lot of time talking with her, getting to know the drama in her classroom and building a genuine bond. “So when we started filming, we could just let our emotions flow and be in the present,” Ma says. 

Like Baker, Tsou used Instagram and street casting to find her actors, resulting in first-timers like Ma being discovered and cast. This meant that Ye, who had starred in a couple of commercials, was one of the more veteran performers. For her,  building a bond with Ma was about playing together and having a lot of fun together so she could feel supported when it was time to go to set. In fact, both Ma and Ye’s favourite moment on set came when filming a scene where the sisters spit boba onto the noodle stall’s fridge and compete to get the balls stuck. 

Shih-Yuan Ma as I-Ann and Nina Ye as I-Jing in Left-Handed Girl. Photo Courtesy of Netflix.

“And I remember the bobas, they can’t stick on the refrigerator, so the art crew had to glue it back on!” Ye recalls. 

“That felt so real to me,” Ma says, “Like we were really sisters.” 

Left-Handed Girl is now streaming on Netflix.