{"id":840334,"date":"2025-12-03T14:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=840334"},"modified":"2025-12-03T14:45:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T11:45:00","slug":"shih-ching-tsou-and-sean-bakers-film-about-a-struggling-family-in-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=840334","title":{"rendered":"Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker\u2019s film about a struggling family in Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Left-Handed Girl (2025)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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Gallery \/ 8 images<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In 2001, Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker were scouting Taiwan to brainstorm ideas for a film they could direct together. Daunted by the possibilities, the pair instead co-wrote and co-directed Take Out<\/em>, a 2004 indie set in their hometown of New York. Revisiting Taipei in 2010, they came across a five-year-old girl running through a night market. The image was instantly cinematic.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe ran around so freely,\u201d says Tsou, the director and co-writer of Left-Handed Girl<\/em>. \u201cWe followed her back to her mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted a young girl who grew up in night markets, but we didn\u2019t know whether she really existed or not,\u201d says Baker, the co-writer and editor of Left-Handed Girl<\/em>. \u201cWhen we came across a girl who was literally I-Jing, we said, \u2018OK, this is realistic.\u2019 It gave us confidence to write the screenplay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tsou and Baker, who met in 1999 as students at The New School in New York, based their script for Left-Handed Girl<\/em> on the aforementioned girl in the night market. However, by the time the film was greenlit, the free-spirited five-year-old was a grown adult. During that period, Tsou was a producer on four films directed by Baker (Starlet<\/em>, Tangerine<\/em>, The Florida Project<\/em>, Red Rocket<\/em>). When Baker started production on Anora<\/em>, Tsou was in Taipei shooting Left-Handed Girl<\/em> as a solo director.<\/p>\n

At the London Film Festival, I meet the pair at Corinthia Hotel, greeting them with my left hand. For Baker, it\u2019s seven months after he concluded an exhausting awards campaign that led to Anora<\/em> winning five Oscars, including Best Picture. \u201cIt\u2019s a different vibe,\u201d he says with a grin. \u201cI\u2019m here to celebrate Shih-Ching\u2019s film.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Already announced as Taiwan\u2019s Oscar submission for 2026, Left-Handed Girl<\/em> follows five-year-old I-Ying (Nina Ye) and her older sister I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma, a first-timer discovered on Instagram) as they are relocated by their mother, Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai), to Taipei, a city where the buzzing night markets offer the chance for reinvention. A heartfelt crowdpleaser with laugh-out-loud set-pieces, it boasts the madcap energy of Tangerine<\/em>, the grittiness of Take Out<\/em>, and the dark humour of Anora<\/em>. Gradually revealing each character\u2019s wants and needs, it\u2019s what the duo refer to as \u201cMike Leigh-ish\u201d \u2013 they cite Secrets & Lies<\/em> as the main inspiration.<\/p>\n

The title comes from I-Ying stunning her conservative grandfather by eating with her left hand. Informed that it\u2019s \u201cthe Devil\u2019s hand\u201d, I-Ying trains herself to use her right hand. The girl thus convinces herself of a loophole: she can\u2019t be blamed for anything to do with her left appendage. It leads to shoplifting (with the left hand, of course) and a terrifying moment when she considers severing her left limb off from the wrist with a kitchen knife.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Taiwan, Tsou was also born left-handed and, under pressure from her grandfather, converted to primarily using her right hand. In the years leading up to the shoot, Tsou\u2019s friends in Taiwan warned her that left-handed corrections were a thing of the past. \u201cI told them, \u2018It\u2019s my story, and I\u2019m going to make my story,\u2019\u201d says Tsou. \u201cThen when I cast Nina in 2022, the mother told me that Nina was born left-handed and they corrected it because of her grandmother.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, it\u2019s still happening!\u201d says Baker, laughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to train Nina to use her left hand again,\u201d says Tsou. \u201cEvery time we cut, we\u2019d be like, \u2018Which hand did she use?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While Left-Handed Girl<\/em> is in Mandarin, the duo wrote the screenplay in English, with Baker typing it up in Final Draft. To apply for a government fund, Tsou translated the script into Chinese. Over the years, the pair would update the script.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I just fell in love with Taiwan immediately. It\u2019s not just the night markets. It\u2019s the binlang stands, the dance hall, the extravagant karaoke rooms<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe subplot with the grandmother being part of a trafficking ring, that was based on real events,\u201d says Baker. \u201cWe wanted to mirror reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shot for $3,000 on a DV camera, Take Out<\/em> captured New York\u2019s melting-pot culture through its non-actors, real locations, and cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9 aesthetic. Several scenes are simply a Chinese deliveryman cycling through Manhattan. (They once considered shooting Left-Handed Girl<\/em> in East Chinatown.) With a larger budget, Left-Handed Girl<\/em> does something similar with Taipei, especially when I-Jing sprints past stalls (the camera lowers to her height), or I-Ann\u2019s arc as a \u201cbinlang girl\u201d \u2013 the term for a provocatively dressed woman who sells betel nuts and cigarettes \u2013 sleeping with her sleazy boss.<\/p>\n

To capture the vibrancy of the night markets, Tsou shot the film on an iPhone. \u201cIf you set up a huge camera, everyone will want to know what you\u2019re doing,\u201d says Tsou. \u201cWith an iPhone, we could follow a little girl in a crowded space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re shooting digital, there\u2019s no reason not to shoot on an iPhone,\u201d adds Baker. \u201cThey\u2019re getting better every day. We shot Tangerine<\/em> on the iPhone 5s on HD, and Shih-Ching shot this on the [iPhone] 13 in 4K.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the beginning, in the car, there was nowhere to put a cameraman amongst the cast,\u201d says Tsou. \u201cSo we taped a phone onto the window.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, that\u2019s how you did it?\u201d says Baker. \u201cThe movie has so much movement. That was made possible by iPhones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kinetic energy is also derived through Baker\u2019s cutting. He claims that editing a Mandarin-language film isn\u2019t as hard as it sounds: he did it on Take Out<\/em>, and also handled the Russian and Armenian dialogue on Anora<\/em>. \u201cI get all the dailies subtitled, and then it\u2019s making choices off of the emotion,\u201d he explains. \u201cYou\u2019re judging a performance from the physicality and inflection. You don\u2019t need to know the language.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Left-Handed Girl (2025)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Baker describes the hardest part of editing Left-Handed Girl<\/em> as ensuring it plays differently on a second viewing. You\u2019ll understand why when the credits roll \u2013 I can confirm that a rewatch is like experiencing a new film. It also has, I notice, a vomiting scene, just like every other Baker-related film.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that [a character throwing up] would be a tradition [in Baker\u2019s films] from very early on,\u201d says Tsou. \u201cThe only thing that changed is that Gogo was originally a monkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

I-Jing\u2019s pet meerkat was meant to be a monkey?<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a pet monkey when I was young,\u201d says Tsou. \u201cBut we needed a special performance license, because it\u2019s a protected animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe called me from Taipei, and said, \u2018We can\u2019t get the monkey,\u2019\u201d says Baker. \u201cI was heartbroken. Then she goes, \u2018No, don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m going to go with a meerkat instead.\u2019 I thought, \u2018That\u2019s good. Besides Life of Pi<\/em>, I\u2019ve never seen a meerkat in a film. And, by the way, this meerkat is touring film festivals and screenings in Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe meerkat\u2019s coming to our premiere,\u201d says Tsou. \u201cHe\u2019s so cute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tsou believes that I-Ying\u2019s exhilaration from witnessing the night markets as a five-year-old girl is paralleling Baker\u2019s reaction to Taipei. \u201cThat\u2019s why the film is so special to audiences, especially westerners,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s like it\u2019s seen through a white guy\u2019s eyes!\u201d She laughs. \u201cThe [local Taiwanese] cinematographers didn\u2019t do the colour correction process with us. When they first saw the film at Cannes, they were like, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s how foreign people look at Taiwan.\u2019 They saw the film through Sean\u2019s eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just fell in love with Taiwan immediately,\u201d says Baker. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the night markets. It\u2019s the binlang stands, the dance hall, the extravagant karaoke rooms. It was all about embracing the cultural specificity, and celebrating it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tsou speaks proudly of learning that Nina Ye continued using her left hand after the shoot. Upon learning of the movie\u2019s existence, the actor\u2019s grandmother decided to be more lenient. \u201cSo now Nina\u2019s got her left hand back,\u201d says Tsou. \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful. We have to get rid of this outdated tradition. You should be able to be who you are. It\u2019s important for people to understand this message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Left-Handed Girl is out now in cinemas and on Netflix.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Source URL: https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/article\/69209\/1\/left-handed-girl-film-taiwan-shih-ching-tsou-sean-baker-interview<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left-Handed Girl (2025) Gallery \/ 8 images In 2001, Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker were scouting Taiwan to brainstorm ideas for a film they could direct together. Daunted by the possibilities, the pair instead co-wrote and co-directed Take Out, a 2004 indie set in their hometown of New York. Revisiting Taipei in 2010, they came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-840334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=840334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=840334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=840334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=840334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}