This paper is devoted to proposing a new asymmetric risk-sensitive criterion involving different risk attitudes toward varying risk sources. The criterion can only be defined through the initial value of the minimal solutions of quadratic backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs). Before uncovering the mean-variance representation for the introduced criterion by the variational approach, some axioms are given for the first time to characterize a variance decomposition of square integrable random variables. The stochastic control problems under this criterion are described as a kind of stochastic recursive control problems that includes controlled quadratic BSDEs. An asymmetric risk-sensitive global stochastic maximum principle is derived when the quadratic BSDEs are equipped with bounded data. A closed-form solution of a stochastic linear-quadratic risk-sensitive control problem is obtained by introducing a novel completion-of-squares technique for controlled quadratic BSDEs. In addition, a dynamic portfolio optimization problem featuring a stochastic return rate is provided as an application of the asymmetric risk-sensitive control.