# Yi ge dou bu neng shao (1999)

### reviewed by
Steve Rhodes

    NOT ONE LESS
    A film review by Steve Rhodes
    Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes
    RATING (0 TO ****):  ***

Chalk. It's an unimportant and cheap commodity for most. But, in the remote Chinese village where 13-year-old Minzhi Wei (Minzhi Wei) is a substitute teacher, it is as precious as gold.

The primary school's only teacher, Teacher Gao (Enman Gao), who will be gone for a month, gives Wei strict instructions regarding the proper use of his small box of chalk. She may use precisely one piece per day. She is to write neither too large (wastes chalk) nor too small (hard on students' eyes). Since education consists mainly of copying from the board, the chalk is the sole tool of her trade.

NOT ONE LESS, about the value of persistence, is a simple, slice of life tale set in modern-day China from director Yimou Zhang (JU DOU and SHANGHAI TRIAD). Wei, who looks bored stiff while teaching her students, has taken the job as a substitute for one reason and one reason only -- she wants the 50 yuan that the mayor has promised her. Since Gao hasn't been paid in 6 months, Wei's ability to ever collect her pay is in question. In order to keep her on the job and keep his students there so that he will have a job to come back to, Gao promises her that he will make sure that the mayor pays her. Moreover, if, when he returns, all of the 28 students are still there (he had 40 until recently), he will give her a 10 yuan bonus. But, only if all 28 are still there and "not one less."

No sooner has he gone than one girl is taken away to a sports facility to become a runner. And then another, Zhang Huike (Zhang Huike), leaves to go to the city to work. 11-year-old Zhang wants to get a job to pay off some of his family's debts.

Wei vows to track Zhang down and bring him back. This becomes an exercise in practical mathematics for the class as they calculate how many bricks (at 1.5 cents per brick), they will have to move to earn enough for their teacher's bus ticket. Their math skills are shown to be lacking -- being off by a factor of 10 turns out to be a common problem. Their economic calculus is thrown further off when the owner of the brickyard points out that they broke most of the bricks, which he didn't want moved in the first place.

The peoples' attitude toward each other range from indifference to hostility. Wei, in particular, never seems to care about her students. She has an obsession about earning the money and that stays the focus of her life. In the final act, she breaks down and cries on television, saying that she's worried about Zhang. Although it may be a cynical view, it isn't clear even then if she really has any aspirations beyond making some money. Poverty can be hardening, and most American poverty would look like abundant luxury compared to what Wei has to endure.

One thing is never considered. What happened to the other 26 students after Wei left for days to search in the big city for Zhang? She never cares and neither does the movie.

NOT ONE LESS runs 1:46. The film is in Mandarin with English subtitles. It is not rated but would probably be a G as there is nothing to offend anyone of any age.

The film has just opened nationwide in the United States. In the San Jose area it is showing at the Towne Theatre.

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews