Not One Less
|
List Price: Our Price: $18.99 You Save: $12.00 (39%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $7.50 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Not One Less
Movie Review: Great Film.
Summary: 5 Stars
Cannes International Film Festival snubbed the film because they thought it was Chinese Communist propanda. The Chinese authorities loved the film because they thought the same, all because of the ending.
Nobody seems to realize just how profoundly wrong that opinion is.
The government and society failed these children, their school and frankly all the people living in the rural areas. The enormous gap of wealth between the city dwellers and peasants is obscene.
Early in the movie, the children sing songs of praise to Mao Zhe Dong and the Communisty party, while the viewer is in full view of their abject poverty and abandonment. Is this in praise of the Communists and Mao's vision or against it?
This film also criticizes how the cities (government and people)ignore their poor.
During the travels through the city, neither the peasant teacher nor the student she is searching for recieves any "free" help from the city dwellers. Nobody blinks an eye at the fact that young peasant children wandering alone in the City, trying to survive on what amounts to a 0.25 cents a day. At most, some people give advice, but never time or money. There are no free bowls of noodles, you will understand when you see the film.
Only when a TV Station manager helps do the kids find relief. Even this help is motivated by a combination of generosity, and desire for good TV material.
This is a very subtle yet loud social criticism. The director should be praised for this profound piece of art.
Movie Review: One of the best movies you will ever watch!
Summary: 5 Stars
Zhang Yimou and his fellow members of the 5 Generation of Chinese Directors have given us such great films. Farewell My Concubine, Blue Kite, and the Emperor and the Assassin.Personally I enjoy Yimou's films the best. Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Latern, and my favorite To Live. Yimou's films are powerful glimpses into Chinese culture and history. Yimou's directing and the acting of his muse Gong Li made these films so good.
Not One Less is one of his first films without Gong Li. In fact, I do not think any of the actors in the film are professionals. But that does not matter. Not One Less is one of the most powerful and moving films you will ever watch.
Not One Less is the story of rural China, poverty, and education. Without giving too much away NOt One Less is about a young girl who becomes a substitute teacher in a one room school house. She is told she will not get paid if any kids drop out. One kid does and this little girls goes across China to find her.
This movie is more than a story of China. It is a universal story of education, poverty, children, and hope.
I saw three great Chinese films this year: Emperor and the Assassin, King of Masks and Not One Less. I highly recommend all three. Emperor and the Assassin was a historical epic. King of Masks was a heartwarming period piece dealing with the role women and Not One Less.
This is a great film. I recommend getting this film.
Movie Review: This movie tricked me...
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie seems simple enough. A girl, really nothing more than an older student, is selected to watch over the school while the schoolmaster is away. The teacher is stubborn (if not too smart) and suggles to keep the class intact till the master comes back. When one boy, needing to make money for his family, goes to the big city the sub follows, to try to find him.The cast is made up of normal people. The students are real students, the shop keepers are real shop keepers and the street bums, for all I know, are real street bums.
At first the film seemed slow. Sometimes the movie tried to be TOO clever and did things that I seemed to see coming a mile away. But it was a trick, like when the kids in Rome hold up a newspaper in front of your face while another tries to pickpocket you. The director is using what seems like formula scenes that any Hollywood hack could write while slowly weaving a truly emotional story that only hits you near the ending. Maybe it is because the cast are NOT actors, or the actions taken by the cast seemed so normal, or the scenes of street life were so REAL. By the end of the movie, when the teacher was on TV asking for the boy to come home, I found myself crying. THAT is not the norm for me.
The movie is like a mass-produced car that some artist has worked on. Outside it seems plain but on the inside it has real power. In some ways more powerful than 'The Road Home'.
Movie Review: Caught me by suprise
Summary: 5 Stars
One day I was channel surfing and AznTV was playing this movie. I must have caught it fairly close to the beginning, where the mayor was trying to get the new substitute teacher to come in to the classroom.
I'm not sure why, but it kinda grabbed me, and just sort of kept me watching. I don't speak any dialect of Chinese, so the subtitles were a bonus. I have no idea how correct the subtitles are. At one point, the mayor calls the local troublemaker a "farthead". That was probably the clincher.
In any event, this is really a movie worth watching. Most of the other reviewers will give you good indications of the plot, but it basically seems to be a movie which points out how callous and uncaring many people can be, towards those less fortunate. That's a message which can easily break any cultural barrier.
But one thing I did walk away with was a sense of culture shock. Sitting in my comfortable middle-class American living room, drinking coffee. Watching a group of 20 children sharing two cans of Coke, most probably never have even tasted a Coke. This kind of gives you a stark view of what life must be like. Other scenes and conflicts bring this to bear, such as the woman at the television station who "was only doing her job" by effectively forcing the child to sleep outside the gates...
Movie Review: Simplicity. Courage. Perseverance. And three tears.
Summary: 5 Stars
It starts off as a slow Earthy tale of a 13 year old recent graduate who is forced to teach in the local primary school as the present (and the only) teacher had to leave to look after his dying Mother. Soon you notice the dynamics of a budding teacher (who herself is adolescent) with a class of 28 students, making you long for the control and stature that she lacks. The kids are a handful, and then some. Especially this one boy whose only solace is in being the center of attraction of the class; by hook, or by crook.
The story takes a swift turn when the previous teacher and the village-mayor promise Wei 50 Yuan in a month, and bonus, if she succeeds in retaining the student-count to 28, not one less. Before your realize, the plot has chained itself around you, as you become a first person force from a passive observer. You will grind teeth, cross nails with each other, and be amazed at the resilience and tirelessness that a teenager demonstrates when looking for a lost student. And then it will hit you. Simplicity. Courage. Perseverance. And three tears.
What a bliss to watch this live painting by Yimou Zhang. The only movie in a long while that gets a perfect score from me: 5.0/5.0. Bravo!
To access detailed reviews, goto RottenMovieReviews DOT blogspot DOT c o m.