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Not One Less

Not One Less
DVD cover divided into three panels. The first depicts a serious-looking young Chinese woman with braided hair; she is standing, surrounded by blurred faces. The second panel shows a group of laughing children, all looking forward. The third panel shows a seated laughing boy, surrounded by the words, Not One Less. Other writing on the cover says, "From Zhang Yimou, award-winning director of Raise the Red Lantern", and the tagline "In her village, she was the teacher. In the city, she discovered how much she had to learn."
DVD release cover
Traditional 一個都不能少
Simplified 一个都不能少
Mandarin yí ge dōu bù néng shǎo
Directed by Zhang Yimou
Produced by Zhang Yimou
Written by Shi Xiangsheng
Starring Wei Minzhi
Zhang Huike
Music by San Bao
Cinematography Hou Yong
Edited by Zhai Ru
Distributed by Columbia TriStar
Release date
  • April 1999 (1999-04) (PRC)
Running time
 106 minutes
Country China
Language Mandarin

Not One Less (Chinese: 一个都不能少; pinyin: yíge dōu bùnéng shǎo) is a 1999 drama film by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, adapted from Shi Xiangsheng's 1997 story "A Sun in the Sky" (Chinese: 天上有个太阳; pinyin: tiān shàng yǒu ge tàiyáng). It was produced by Guangxi Film Studio and released by China Film Group Corporation in mainland China, and distributed by Sony Pictures Classics and Columbia TriStar internationally.

Set in the People's Republic of China during the 1990s, the film centers on a 13-year-old substitute teacher, Wei Minzhi, in the Chinese countryside. Called in to substitute for a village teacher for one month, Wei is told not to lose any students. When one of the boys takes off in search of work in the big city, she goes looking for him. The film addresses education reform in China, the economic gap between urban and rural populations, and the prevalence of bureaucracy and authority figures in everyday life. It is filmed in a neorealist/documentary style with a troupe of non-professional actors who play characters with the same names and occupations as the actors have in real life, blurring the boundaries between drama and reality.

The domestic release of Not One Less was accompanied by a Chinese government campaign aimed at promoting the film and cracking down on piracy. Internationally, the film was generally well-received, but it also attracted criticism for its ostensibly political message; foreign critics are divided on whether the film should be read as praising or criticizing the Chinese government. When the film was excluded from the 1999 Cannes Film Festival's competition section, Zhang withdrew it and another film from the festival, and published a letter rebuking Cannes for politicization of and "discrimination" against Chinese cinema. The film went on to win the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion and several other awards, and Zhang won the award for best director at the Golden Rooster Awards.


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