Growing pains: How Shu Qi and other Asian first-time female directors capture girlhood on film

SINGAPORE – April 16 sees the local theatrical release of Girl, the feature film directing debut of Taiwanese actress Shu Qi – a woman already famous enough not to need a debut.

Her career stretches back to the 1990s, through erotic comedy Viva Erotica (1996) to Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Three Times (2005), which won her a Golden Horse Award for Best Actress.

Now, the 49-year-old has stepped behind the camera, and the result is a movie about growing up female in a society that has already decided who you should be. And she is not alone.

Here are some films by women from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan. All of these feature debuts ask the same uncomfortable question and arrive at different answers.

Girl (2025, written and directed by Shu Qi, from Taiwan)

What: Nominated for the Golden Lion at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, winner of Best Director at the 2025 Busan International Film Festival

When: Opens in cinemas on April 16

The setting: It is 1988 in the dusty port city of Keelung, Taiwan. A family lives in a tiny apartment. In a beauty salon, the mother works, while the father has a job at his uncle’s car repair shop and drinks heavily. The film is partly drawn from Shu Qi’s childhood, with the set design showing the thin walls and cluttered kitchen drawn from memory.

The main girls: Hsiao-lee (Bai Xiao-ying), who lives with her younger sister (Lai Yu-fei), has learnt to shrink herself to avoid drawing the attention of her parents. Into Hsiao-lee’s closed-off world comes Li-li (Lin Pin-tung), a fearless transfer student whose confidence shows Hsiao-lee what life not lived in quiet despair looks like.

The adults in the room: Hsiao-lee’s mother Chuan (Taiwanese singer 9m88) regards her daughter with a hostility that springs from regret over her own life choices, while her father Chiang (Roy Chiu) is an alcoholic prone to violent rages. Both are locked in their own pain.

Local colour: Shu Qi films working-class Taipei with the bold colours associated with her mentor, the renowned Taiwanese film-maker Hou Hsiao-hsien. There is photography that stays with its subjects instead of flicking away. Critics note that what feels different is the gaze: Where the male directors of the Taiwanese New Wave told stories of girlhood from the outside, Shu Qi tells her story from within. In interviews, the star said Girl reflects traumas that many women faced in childhood, with the hurt lingering for years afterwards. As a line in the trailer states: “Every woman carries the girl she once was.”

Flat Girls (2025, written and directed by Jirassaya Wongsutin, from Thailand)

What: Selected to screen at the New York Asian Film Festival 2025

Where: Available on Netflix

The setting: A Bangkok apartment complex set aside as homes for the families of police officers. Flat Girls is a slice of social realism about the lives of two families, each with teen girls who are lifelong friends. In this teeming vertical village, inhabitants might live within earshot of one another, but are worlds apart in income and prospects.

The main girls: Jane (Kirana Pipityakorn), the landlady’s daughter, is happy where she is because, for her, life is a series of doors yet to open. Her close friend Ann (Fatima Dechawaleekul) has a mother who is a gambling addict and a distant father, and feels suffocated by the flats, as she has no escape route. Their friendship runs deep, but their dreams pull them in opposite directions towards an uncertain future.

The adults in the room: Freedom is in short supply for Ann’s parents, who view escape as impossible and pass their despair to their child. They are being realistic, not cruel.

Local colour: Jirassaya’s quiet, melancholic drama is semi-autobiographical, as she grew up in police housing similar to the one shown in the film. Her view of Thai society as one split by the sad realities of class and income will surprise those whose Thai movie diet consists mainly of cosy family dramas or heartwarming comedies.

Left-Handed Girl (2025, co-written and directed by Tsou Shih-Ching, from Taiwan; with Oscar-winning American director Sean Baker serving as co-writer, co-producer and editor)

What: Selected to screen at Cannes Critics’ Week 2025. It is Taiwan’s entry to the Academy Awards in 2026, making the December shortlist.

Where: Available on Netflix

The setting: The busy night markets of Taipei and the surrounding city form the backdrop, all of it filmed on iPhones. The market is a magical place for the girl in the story, but for her mother, a noodle stall operator, it is where she finds endless drudgery. Despite this, Tsou and Baker – who won five Oscars for the comedy-drama Anora (2024) – infuse the story with optimism and humour.

The main girl: At just five, I-Jing (Nina Ye) is more susceptible to the bad ideas spouted by grown-ups, like the left hand being the tool of the devil, as her superstitious grandfather tells her. Her left-handedness becomes a source of shame, chipping away at her sense of self-worth.

The adults in the room: I-Jing’s teenage older sister I-Ann (Ma Shih-yuan) has issues of her own, while their single mother Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai) struggles to make ends meet.

Local colour: The film deals with the stigma of left-handedness, which is still viewed in parts of Asia as bringing bad luck, or a handicap. In Tsou’s Taipei, the city pities no one, least of all a single mother trying to raise two daughters.

Amoeba (2025, written and directed by Tan Siyou, from Singapore)

What: At Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards in 2025, Amoeba won the out-of-competition FIPRESCI Prize and the Taiwan Film Critics Society Award.

Where: Now showing at Filmhouse

The setting: An elite girls’ school in Singapore, where students are fed the school’s illustrious history along with a helping of Confucian values about well-behaved girls growing up to be respectable women.

The main girl: Choo (Ranice Tay) is the surly outsider who attracts Vanessa (Nicole Lee), Gina (Genevieve Tan) and Sofia (Lim Shi-An) into her orbit, but the story puts a spotlight on the interpersonal dynamics of the self-styled girl gang. The bond – cemented by rituals they create inspired by the long-disappeared triads they admire – is where they draw their strength from in the face of pressure from adults.

The adults in the room: Except for Sofia’s driver Uncle Phoon (Taiwanese actor Jack Kao) the grown-ups are antagonists seeking to make the girls conform through threats of punishment.

Local colour: Tan Siyou’s story is loosely based on her experiences as a student at a top Singapore girls’ school, so it is rich in detail about the ways girls are policed there. They see the myths they have been fed – stories steeped in national pride and Asian values – as tools of behaviour control.

Tiger Stripes (2023, written and directed by Amanda Nell Eu, from Malaysia)

What: Winner of Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prix 2023

Where: Available on Netflix

The setting: Rural Malaysia, where traditions run deep, and where girls and boys can retain their innocence for longer. All around is the jungle, a place that serves as a refuge for the preteens, but also the dwelling place of spooky forces. This scary tale reshapes Malay horror films of the 1960s into an allegory about puberty and girls who fail to be ashamed by it.

The main girls: Twelve-year-old Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) is a girl going through changes, physical and emotional. Her transformation sparks fear in her elders and friends. Their reactions are extreme and often funny. Her close friend Farah (Deena Ezral) proves to be the harshest judge of all.

The adults in the room: They panic when they see Zaffan’s lack of embarrassment, which they view as brazenness. They call in Dr Rahim (Shaheizy Sam), a faith healer and a fame-hungry social media influencer. Their well-meaning interventions make things worse for the girl.

Local colour: Everything here is rooted in rural traditions of Malaysia, though film-maker Eu expresses it in a style that heightens the setting’s strangeness, making the story’s tone satirical, almost comically so.