Suspect Reviews

Not One Less, or

Yi ge dou bu neng shao, 1999, director Yimou Zhang, starring Minzhi Wei. 

Here’s a G-rated movie from China.  I’m still digesting what I just saw, so I’ll start off describing the story.

A young girl is hired to be the substitute teacher in a one room school for a month.  She’s only a few years older than her students, but the poor rural village has no other options.  She is instructed that her pay depends on keeping the poor students in school.  The school already lost ten students because their families needed them to go to work, so the substitute teacher must keep the class together.  At the end of the month, there must be, “Not one less.” 

If you are a teacher, you’ll sympathize with the inexperienced substitute, and you’ll wish that the “bad” behavior of these students was the worst you’d ever had to deal with.  The bad boy of the class turns up missing one day.  His widowed mother sent him to the city to pay off their debts.  The substitute teacher has to find a way to bring him back. 

So the story is a journey.  It’s going to great lengths to find what was lost.*  It’s starting out by giving everything you have, and then depending on the help of those you meet on the way.  Classic. 

I recommend this movie for all ages, except you’ll have to read subtitles.  The movie gave me a view of life in rural China, and a hint of 3rd World living.  In my own country’s history, it was not unknown to have this situation of a recent student being put in charge of a one room schoolhouse. 

As I think about it, the value of this movie is illustrating how the other half lives.  The small school has a hard time budgeting pieces of chalk, let alone the salary of its teacher.  A donation easily given by city people would be highly valued by the students.  Warning:  You will want to write a check to charity immediately after watching this film. 

The movie was made with non-professional actors, and some of it was filmed with hidden cameras to capture the real-life reactions of people on the street.  The star, Teacher Wei, was a regular village girl when chosen, and since then, she’s gone off to college to follow her dreams.   http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/cw/214270.htm

The fact and fiction will warm your heart.

4196

*Western Christians will associate the themes with the parables of Jesus, the One Lost Sheep or the Prodigal Son, but in Maoist China, I don’t think they’d agree.  Americans might think of  the political slogan, “No child left behind.”

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• #1 Comment from refoldedEntry Author 
  3/9/08 9:37 PM | Permalink

  This is a good movie on the second viewing, too.  
  
  Although it doesn't show any religion at all, I think Christians will definitely see the radical teaching of Jesus illustrated in the story.  
  
  The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.  Even the one sheep.