Not one less = Yi ge dou bu neng shao

Directed by Yimou Zhang, the rural drama “Not one less” is a study in poverty and the determination of one teenage girl. Wei Minzhi is a barely educated thirteen-year-old, who takes on a job teaching young children at an impoverished village school. As the regular teacher leaves he promises Wei bonus pay if, upon his return, all the students are still in school. Inexperienced and overwhelmed, but relentlessly stubborn, Wei faces ingratitude and her own misery as she grapples with the recalcitrant students. When one boy is sent to work in the city, where he lives on the street, Wei pursues him. Once there Wei is overwhelmed by the crowds, bustling street life and enormity of the task of finding a young boy amid the vast city and innumerable homeless children who reside there. Here Zhang steers away from the lush melodramas, such as “Raise the red lantern”, “Red sorghum” and “Shanghai Triad”, in favour of a sparse aesthetic that speaks of the plight of rural Chinese, portraying village life decimated by the commercialisation of China.