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Rarely do elements in any culture carry as much ridiculousness and power as its superstitions. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a sweet five-year-old who has recently relocated back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. She gets direct personal experience when her grandfather admonishes her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.

As I-Jing examines her hand with worry, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called devil hand while she navigates city life. Shot entirely with iPhones, first-time director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, summons the dynamic vibe and sensory immersion of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters adorn the glass windows of a pawn shop; the pleasant melody of garbage trucks fills the air; the easy ping-pong of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; verdant foliage against aged structures that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a bustling, humid city. It’s not so much a love letter from a fan as it is a devotional to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the vivid glimpses of the city with the splinters of flawed individuals – tenderly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a masterpiece of a film.

Family Relationships and Inner Conflicts

The drama, Taiwan’s submission 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 very charming Nina Ye, begins a new school and, with the wonder only a child can have, experiments with the potential of this newly labeled devil hand.

As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the forbidden hand, separating a right hand that does what’s required and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou gracefully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film portrays the intricacies between what a person feels duty-bound to and what she genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t free 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 move forward; I-Jing is told to be present but silent.

Cinematic Craft and Emotional Resonance

Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, expertly places us onto each family member’s separate planets, with many shots recording the frisky and delightful rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re eye-level with I-Jing as she makes her first theft, the excitement building with a camera shaky and beat staccato. The camera pans overhead as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights shimmering in the heat, bringing an expansive feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone to feel.

A sense of duty is expertly integrated into each conundrum, as well as the loneliness that comes with it – it’s at once intimate and saddening 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 scorned 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.

Lighter Moments and Performances

There are also moments of levity and playfulness, especially with the grandma’s flashes of indignation, time with a meerkat that becomes I-Jing’s pet, and I-Jing’s general joy with the world. Ye, who is a left-hander in real life, perfectly balances of an young girl absorbing the economic pressures 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 considered portrait of an sharp teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an undeniable but unaffordable emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.

Climactic Scenes and Central Ideas

By the soap opera-like second-to-last dinner scene, the clan has developed big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting humiliated in front of an audience. And the disclosures are good – by that point, it’s like discovering a shocking, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script sharply examines what it really means to lose face: which disgraces are honorable, which are self-serving, and what should be handed down from one generation to the next?

Some of these revelations are left unexcavated after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also understanding that airing everything doesn’t mean resolution or a tidy adage immediately follows, or that there will be a sinister influence to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just wakes up to another day, and, a little lighter (having lost a little face), so do you.

• Release Information: The film is released in select cinemas on November 14 and on digital services from 28 November.