Not One Less (1999) on Netflix
In a mountain village, the only teacher leaves for a month, and the mayor finds no substitute but thirteen-year-old Wei Minzhi. Gao promises her ten extra yuan if no pupil leaves.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.7/109,890 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
Wei Minzhi, thirteen, arrives in Shuiquan village to take over the only classroom while its teacher, Gao Enman, spends a month with his sick mother. He finds she has not finished high school, so he tells her to put his lessons on the blackboard for the pupils to copy, with one stick of chalk a day. Many children have already gone to the cities for work, and he offers her ten extra yuan if the whole class remains. The pupils shout and run around instead of working, and Zhang Huike, the troublemaker, tells her she is not a teacher. When he leaves for Zhangjiakou to find a job, the mayor refuses her bus money, and she sets the remaining pupils to moving bricks in a brickyard so she can afford the fare.
Cast
- Sun Zhimeias Sun Zhimei
- Yuying Fengas TV Receptionist
- Fanfan Lias TV Host
- Yichang Zhangas Mr Zhang, instructor
- Zhanqing Xuas Brick factory owner
- Hanzhi Liuas Zhang Huike's mother
- Ma Guolinas Bus station man
- Wu Wanluas TV station manager
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Not One Less (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After neither Not One Less nor Zhang's other 1999 film The Road Home was selected for the 1999 Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection, Zhang withdrew both in protest and, in a Beijing Youth Daily open letter, accused Cannes of "discrimination against Chinese films".
- Zhang worked closely with government censors during production; they warned him not to show China as too backward or poor, and he had to put one million rural school dropouts on the end title cards although he believed the true number was three times that.
- The China Copyright Office banned unauthorized production or distribution of Not One Less, the first special copyright protection China had enacted for a domestic film; Hubei officials later raided ten audio-video stores and seized pirated discs from six.
- Zhang cast only amateur actors whose real names and jobs matched their characters; Tian Zhenda, who played the mayor, was a real village mayor, and leads Wei Minzhi and Zhang Huike were chosen from thousands of rural students.
- Not One Less was shot in a documentary-like neorealist style using hidden cameras and natural lighting; the film also uses frequent, rapid cuts partly because the actors were inexperienced.
- Although it was withdrawn from Cannes, Not One Less won the Golden Lion, the top award at the Venice Film Festival; Zhang also received a best director award at the Golden Rooster.
