Film Review: Girl 女孩 (2025) - Taiwan
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)
I rated it 8/10
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog
Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com
There are films that merely tell stories, and then there are those that feel like quiet confessions whispered across generations. Shu Qi’s directorial debut 《女孩》 (Girl) belongs firmly in the latter category—an aching, semi-autobiographical portrait of girlhood shadowed by domestic storms, yet illuminated by fleeting rays of tenderness and self-discovery. In the smoke-dusted industrial haze of 1988 Keelung, Taiwan, we meet young Lin Xiaoli (a remarkable Bai Xiao-ying), a withdrawn girl navigating the suffocating confines of a fractured home. Her father’s rage and her mother’s buried wounds form the prison walls; her unlikely friendship with the vibrant Li Lili (Lin Pin-tong) becomes the crack through which light first enters.
Shu Qi, long a luminous presence on screen under masters like Hou Hsiao-hsien, steps behind the camera with the assured hand of someone who has lived these silences. The film does not shout its pain. Instead, it lingers in the everyday textures: the oscillating fan cutting through humid tension, the dim kitchen bathed in teal and mustard hues, the way a child’s gaze lingers on a bridge that promises escape. Cinematographer Yu Jing-ping and editor Chang Shue-ping craft frames of haunting beauty that never soften the brutality—they heighten it, turning the ordinary into something almost sacred. Roy Chiu’s volatile father and 9m88’s wounded mother are not caricatures but mirrors of generational trauma, their performances raw and unflinching.
What elevates Girl beyond mere memoir is its poetic restraint. Shu Qi understands that the deepest wounds often remain unspoken, passed like heirlooms from mother to daughter. The friendship between Xiaoli and Lili pulses with the fragile joy of first recognition—two girls daring to imagine a world beyond the violence that shaped them. There are moments of breathtaking visual invention: symbolic flourishes that evoke Hou’s contemplative style while carving out something distinctly Shu’s own. The film’s deliberate pace may test some viewers, and its emotional weight can feel unrelenting, yet this very immersion makes the glimmers of hope all the more luminous.
In an era of flashy blockbusters, Girl reminds us of cinema’s power to bear witness. It is not always easy to watch—cycles of suffering rarely are—but it is profoundly human. Shu Qi has given us a work of bruised grace, a mirror held up to anyone who has ever yearned to break free from inherited shadows. For its visual poetry, committed performances, and tender yet unflinching gaze,
A film that lingers like memory itself—painful, beautiful, and quietly transformative. Highly recommended for those who value soul over spectacle. (Neo, 2026)