Not One Less Review

Zhang Yimou’s films have always been heart wrenching and sad. Not One Less is a nice departure from the normal death and tragedy that ends his other films. Grant it I have only seen two of his other films, Farwell my Concubine and Hero, which both ended in death. After a bit of research you will see most of his other films follow the same pattern. So the pretty much opposite path this film takes was a relief when I got to the end to figure out that nobody died. This was a great film that I would highly recommend.

The school’s teacher, Teacher Gao is forced to take a one month leave of absence to look after his sick mother. The school, despite a seemingly happy environment, is suffering from rundown materials and a shortage of chalk. There is no one to replace him so the Mayor of the village hires a 13 year old girl, teacher Wei, to do the job. At first it seems as though she wont be able to teach the kids much, she is only thirteen not having much experience of her own. Yet despite her youthful appearance she turns out to be a harsh teacher, locking them outside until they finish copying the lesson.

When a rather unruly student Zhang goes off to the city to work in restaurants and such to make money to help pay off his mothers debts, teacher Wei’s character and strength starts to show itself. Already having lost one student to an athletic school she is determined not to loose another. After being denied a car ride to the city she gets the students involved in making enough money to get a bus ride. Bringing the class together, for one of my favorite scenes in the movie, they determine that they can work at a brick factory and move bricks for money. After figuring out how many bricks they need to move to get enough money they head off to the factory only to find it closed on account of the power being out. This doesn’t stop them and it leads to a beautiful scene where the kids all scurry around to move enough bricks. When the foramen refuses to pay them an the account that they broke most of the bricks they use their newly formed unity and strength to get the money. After more complications teacher Wei finally makes it to the City.

In the city teacher Wei goes through many hardships trying to find Zhong. Until she hears that the only way to be heard is to get a TV add. At the TV station she is forced to wait outside for two whole days thus getting the attention of the TV station manager. He invites her in and is so touched by her story that he gets her a spot on their most popular show. This is the major emotional part of the film. Teacher Wei lets her emotions pour out ultimately finding Zhong, getting back to the school, and making the city’s people aware of their situation.

The film’s ending is another touching part. The school gets donations from the people of the city, most important of which is new chalk. The credits roll over each student taking a different color of chalk and writing a character on the black board. It was a perfect ending to a great film that I would definitely recommend watching.