Girl (Nühai) Review: Strikingly Tender Debut

Shu Qi’s Girl (Nühai) is a moving, thematically rich drama that comments extensively on themes of childhood and family.

The film is a slice-of-life drama that centers around a young girl named Hsiao-lee (Bai Xiao-Ying), and her attempts to reckon with her crumbling domestic life. While her alcoholic father and abusive mother tear each other apart at home, Hsiao-lee finds solace in a blossoming friendship with a new transfer student, who teaches her important lessons about identity and self-expression.

While Girl can often feel quite simplistic and predictable in its themes, Shu Qi does an admirable job of refining this story to a point where no scene feels redundant or unnecessary. Every moment of this narrative is crucial to understanding the protagonist’s journey – even those which may seem aimless or meandering at first. Qi allows the audience to connect with her protagonist on a richer, more spiritual level, really feeling her pain rather than just understanding it. The film’s slow pace definitely requires some patience, but the depth of the storytelling soon becomes clear.

At its core, Girl is a story about the dissonance between the two lives a child leads: the one they share with their parents, and the one they share with their friends. Hsiao-lee’s home life is marked by persistent suffering and an absence of joy. Her mother ignores her distress, while her father’s violent behavior continues to haunt her in nightmares. It takes a while to really get used to Girl’s disarmingly cynical story, but it soon becomes clear that Hsiao-lee’s ruptured childhood serves a greater purpose.

Qi’s screenplay offers some fascinating insight into how a dysfunctional family dynamic can stunt a child’s personal development, forcing them to adopt an adult’s perspective of the world before they’re expected to do so. When the film really leans into this thematic strand, Girl is unstoppable. Unfortunately, the film also tends to linger on subplots that don’t have as much depth, such as the relationship between Hsiao-lee’s parents when she’s not around.

It’s clear why these characters aren’t given as much development and substance as Hsiao-lee herself, as Girl is clearly intended to be her story above all else. Still, the film really holds itself back by presenting her parents in such a one-dimensional, archetypal way. Roy Chiu and 9m88 do a great job with the material they’re given, but the fact remains that their characters simply don’t feel as multifaceted as Bai Xiao-ying’s protagonist.

For a debut feature, Girl has a very impressive and distinct visual style that makes it easy to forgive most of the narrative shortcomings. The way Shu Qi frames her shots is extremely precise, confidently guiding the viewer’s gaze with a clear, accessible visual language that makes Girl’s deeper themes truly pop. Her patience also shines through the film’s many establishing shots; she never rushes the story to neglect the atmosphere, which is a mistake plenty of debut features make. 

Overall, Shu Qi’s Girl is a very moving film that has notable flaws, but overcomes most of the formal obstacles you’d typically associate with a debut feature. The film’s exploration of childhood, femininity, and family is incredibly mature, and it manages to form a fresh, in-depth opinion on these themes despite its familiar story.

Girl (Nühai – 女孩) had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 4, 2025.