Taipei is quite literally a kaleidoscopic wonderland in Left-Handed Girl, the triumphant solo directorial debut by US-Taiwanese filmmaker Shih-Ching Tsou, best known for being a longtime producer (Starlet, Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket) for Anora director Sean Baker. Tsou co-directed Take Out with Baker in 2004, and his touch feels palpable in her approach to depicting children in an accessible yet honest way, where viewers either discover or rediscover the Taiwanese capital in a manner that will make you want to travel there immediately.

Here, Tsou captures the pageantry and patriarchy of extended family – especially in the Taiwanese context – with precision, humour and deep emotion. After an acclaimed premiere in the Cannes Critics’ Week in May, Netflix acquired rights to Left-Handed Girl for a large portion of world territories, where it will be released for streaming beginning on 28 November. The film most recently became Taiwan’s Oscars submission for 2026 (see the news) and picked up a Special Mention in the Feature Film Competition of the Zurich Film Festival (see the news).

Shu-Fen (standout Janet Tsai) moves back to Taipei to open a noodle shop at a bustling night market, trying to make ends meet as a single mum for her two daughters: the university-aged I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) – who finds a job in a betel nut shop, wearing revealing clothing to attract seedy men to buy the addictive stimulant – and the ever-curious, delightfully wide-eyed five-year-old I-Jing (Nina Ye). While we witness the struggles of mother and elder daughter, both fiercely independent and butting heads as a result, it’s I-Jing’s child worldview in which we really dwell, tossed into a brand-new universe of beaming lights, fresh places to wander and new people to meet.

Chaos ensues with the antics of Shu-Fen’s parents, including a passport-trafficking scam run by her mother – earning loads of money bringing people illegally to the USA – and her father’s dismay at I-Jing’s left-handedness, leading the girl to panic about her “devil hand”. Their roles in the story inject a further spurt of humour into this drama with comedic elements, in which Tsou blows up the more measured dramatic beats of the rest of the story with an explosive close centred on the madness of Taiwanese families. The bullet train of events sometimes feels almost too action-packed, but Tsou succeeds in ensuring none of the three central characters’ stories ever go unattended, deftly weaving between them both emotionally and narratively.

But when it comes down to it, it’s the cinematography by Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao that truly makes the film shine. The camera – often iPhone or wide-angle – literally trundles along with I-Jing at her eye level, with just enough bounce to make us feel like we’re travelling in the same spirit as the girl, but smoothly so, agile enough to traverse the side streets while accompanied by bright, bouncing music. Taipei’s lights sparkle and glint with the vivacity of festive LEDs as the sisters whoosh along on I-Ann’s moped. In Left-Handed Girl, the hard work of drama gives way to the rich reward of visuals: plainly put, it’s a joy to watch.

Left-Handed Girl is a co-production between Le Pacte (France), Good Chaos (UK) and Left-Handed Girl Film Productions Company (Taiwan/USA).