Yi ge dou bu neng shao
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NOT ONE LESS is the heartwarming tale of a 13-year-old girl, Wei Minzi (Wei), who is a substitute teacher living in a poor village in rural China. She is given a month-long assignment to teach a classroom of 28 students, ages 6 through 10, with instructions to make sure that all the students, "not one less," stay in school. Wei approaches the job as any 13-year-old might--like a sullen teenager--but because she's close in age to her students, they respond to her with playful attentiveness. As the story goes, Zhang Huike (Zhang), the class troublemaker, is sent to the city to find work and pay off his parents' debts. Teacher Wei sets out to find him and bring him back. Wei puts herself on the line for her tiny school and its impoverished community, and miraculously, her message travels farther than she'd ever imagined it might. (official distributor synopsis)
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The world of cinema is still full of surprises. Judging by the director's name, you would expect some lavish costume feast, but what you get is a very subtle, almost documentary-like story of a young girl who, somewhere in the Chinese countryside, substitutes for a teacher in the local school and promises to look after the children and keep the classroom participation from falling apart. But one of the students, from a poor family, goes to the city to earn money to pay his family's debts. The young substitute decides to bring the boy back and goes into town looking for him. Aside from the slightly bizarre plot, the story feels authentic, except for the final 15 minutes, when it takes on almost fairytale proportions and tells us that even a completely unknown person can be helped by the big beast from state television. But what the heck, even miracles happen sometimes. What makes this film interesting are the pleasantly down-to-earth performances of the non-actors and the Chinese realities, especially the interesting hilly landscape of central China.
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