Will I-Jing’s devilish left hand come right in the end?

Daniel Nelson

Director Shih-Ching Tsou sets up the scene with a mother and two daughters moving to Taipei to start new lives, but it’s grandfather’s shock at discovering the younger daughter is left-handed that supercharges the family story.

Five-year-old I-Jing is The Left-Handed Girl, and she absorbs and then operationalises the news of the evilness of the left by embarking on a secret life of left-handed shoplifting. After all, it’s the hand that’s to blame, not her.

Twenty-year-old daughter I-Ann is also rebelling, in a different way for a different but unknown reason. She makes some frustratingly unwise life decisions.

So mother Shu-Fen has her hands full as she struggles to make a living from her night-market stall, not helped by her decision to pay for her husband’s funeral.

Gradually, other members of the family and strained relationships are drawn into the trio’s travails.

If this sounds like a grim, gritty story of struggling lives, think again. It’s  zippy, colourful, humorous, sweet, humane, much of it seen through I-Jing’s innocent eyes. The lightness and brightness of the street market is an adventure playground for a five-year-old, and the stallholders’ camaraderie gives it warmth.

The set-piece family climax (who knew the film needed one?) and the Big Reveal come about through a sudden shift of gear. It’s rather hackneyed and sits uneasily with the rest of the film, like over-sweetened artificially-coloured tinned fruit dumped onto a plain but delicious cake.