Left-Handed Girl Review: BFI London Film Festival 2025

Three generations of Taiwanese women find their fortunes in Left-Handed Girl

What does a filmmaker do next after sweeping the Oscars? For American Sean Baker – who helmed Anora to five golden statuettes earlier this year – the answer, surprisingly, is to co-write, produce and edit a film entirely in Mandarin. Yet Left-Handed Girl is just the latest collaboration in a filmmaking partnership going back over twenty years. Taiwanese director Shih-Ching Tsou met Baker at film school, they co-directed 2004’s Take Out together, and she’s produced some of his biggest critical successes. So, it’s only natural that Baker would lend his support to this, Tsou’s solo directorial debut.

Single mother Shu Fen (Janel Tsai) and her two daughters – young adult I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) and five-year-old I-Jing (Nina Ye) – move back to Taipei after several years away from the city. While the move brings them closer to Shu Fen’s mother and sisters, they are cold and judgemental, leaving her with little support. Burdened by debts from her lousy ex-husband, Shu Fen opens a noodle stall in a night market in the hopes of gaining financial independence and turning their life around.

Stubborn and sullen, I-Ann is determined to forge her own path, dressing outrageously and taking on work that her family disapprove of. She’s constantly talking back to Shu Fen, while she in turn argues with her own mother. While the older family members are frequently at war, innocent young I-Jing is often left to her own devices. Wandering the night market alone, she soon gets up to plenty of mischief.

Tsou seems to share Baker’s affection for stories about wayward women and precocious children, but Left-Handed Girl also slowly seeds ideas about the specific cultural misogyny that keeps its characters downtrodden. Shu Fen’s mother refuses to financially assist her struggling daughter, yet ploughs endless money into her son’s business ventures. I-Ann’s job is ostensibly just that of a cashier, yet her security is reliant on being sexualised by her boss and customers. The older female relatives all still give great weight to being an attractive marriage prospect, even in this modern metropolis of a city.

The pacing at times feels meandering, with each individual plot strand not quite having the same strength of impact as the others – yet it all leads to a decently surprising, bruisingly tense final emotional showdown. All three central family members are delightfully drawn and propelled by excellent performances, but tiny Nina Ye is the standout as the industrious I-Jing, a character so cute that the two women behind me were audibly cooing nearly every time she appeared on screen.

The other starring turn is from Taipei itself, which Tsou captures with clear affection as the two sisters zip through town on their moped. There is a warmth and a buzz to this city, the night market humming in glorious neon as a place full of life and light. While early scenes capture the trepidation of a lone 5-year-old wandering a busy and unfamiliar place, we soon find that around every corner is a new friend, the market traders all aunties or uncles, ready to embrace I-Jing as if they are her own relatives. In many ways, they do more for her than her own flesh and blood extended family.

Left-Handed Girl is a very strong debut from Shih-Ching Tsou, managing to switch tone between the playfulness of its young protagonist and the world-weary dread of her mother with natural ease. A totally immersive portrait of nighttime Taipei centred around a smartly observed family dynamic, with an impactful storyline – there is plenty here to delight audiences.

Left-Handed Girl is playing as part of the BFI London Film Festival. It will be streaming on Netflix from 28th November 2025

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