Not One Less (一个都不能少)

Not One Less (一个都不能少) is a 1999 Chinese drama film directed by Zhang Yimou, written by Shi Xiangsheng (施祥生), and starring the non-professional actors Wei Minzhi (魏敏芝) and Zhang Huike (张慧科). Adapted from Shi Xiangsheng's novel There Is a Sun in the Sky (天上有个太阳), it follows a teenage substitute teacher in a poor mountain village who travels to the city to find a student who has left school to earn money. The film premiered on 7 September 1999 at the Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion, and it later received major Chinese awards including the Golden Rooster Award for Best Director and the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Picture.¹

Production and style

Zhang Yimou, known as "the peasant director" for his many films set in the Chinese countryside, had previously been known for ambitious period dramas such as Raise the Red Lantern and Ju Dou; Not One Less was a departure toward contemporary rural realism.² The film was shot on location in Shuiquan village in Chicheng County, Hebei, and wrapped there on 16 July 1998, when the crew also held the opening ceremony for a Shuiquan Hope Primary School built with a 70,000-yuan donation from the production team.³

The cast consists entirely of non-professional actors who had never received performance training.³ According to the Los Angeles Times, Zhang cast people such as the village mayor, whose screen roles match their real-life occupations, permitted the performers to retain their actual names in the film, and occasionally relied on concealed cameras so that the actors would lose sight of the fact that they were performing.⁶ The Busan International Film Festival's archive notes that, unlike Zhang's earlier The Story of Qiu Ju, the film casts actual villagers rather than professional actors.⁷

The production companies were Guangxi Film Studios, Columbia Pictures, Beijing New Picture Film Co., and Film Productions Asia; the European Film Academy notes that the film was produced with the help of government funding.^{4 • 2} Baidu Baike lists Zhang Weiping as producer, while the European Film Academy and Rotten Tomatoes credit Zhao Yu.^{1 • 2 • 4}

Themes and reception

Critics read the film as a commentary on rural poverty, child labor, and the state of education in 1990s China. The European Film Academy described it as a highly critical commentary on poverty and child labor in modern-day China despite its government funding.² A Columbia University review placed the film among recent neo-realist works such as the Brazilian Central Station and the American La Ciudad, arguing that it speaks for rural people left behind by China's economic transformation, and that haggling over money is a persistent theme throughout.⁸ The Paper's retrospective noted that the film's concerns with rural education, poverty, and illiteracy retained social relevance years after release.³

Awards. At the 56th Venice International Film Festival the film won the Golden Lion, Zhang Yimou's second Golden Lion after The Story of Qiu Ju; the same festival awarded Zhang Yuan's Seventeen Years a Best Director prize, the first time one country took both top honors at a major international festival, according to People's Daily's report from Venice.⁹ The Guardian reported that the film had been rejected for competition at Cannes before winning at Venice, where the jury was led by Emir Kusturica.¹⁰ In China the film won the Huabiao Award in 1998, the Golden Rooster Award for Best Director and the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Picture in 1999, and in 2008 the "most popular rural-themed film" award at the 9th Changchun Film Festival.¹ The Paper counts ten international awards overall, including the Golden Rooster, the São Paulo International Film Festival prize, and the Venice Golden Lion.³

Commercial and critical performance. Baidu Baike records a box office of US$592,600, and Rotten Tomatoes lists a US gross of $589.1K.^{1 • 4} On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 96% Tomatometer score from 46 reviews and a 90% audience score from more than 5,000 ratings.⁴ The Los Angeles Times called it an unadorned, sentimental story with a warmth and sweetness hard to resist, while noting it takes only relatively mild shots at rural poverty and the shortcomings of the education system.⁶ The Guardian's Derek Malcolm judged it a nice story whose portrait of present-day China is not entirely uncritical, though not quite up to The Story of Qiu Ju.¹⁰

Release

After its Venice premiere on 7 September 1999, the film opened in South Korea on 30 October 1999, France on 3 November 1999, and Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia on 2 December 1999. It screened at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States on 21 January 2000 and opened in New York on 18 February 2000, followed by releases in Germany, Japan, Spain, and other markets through 2001.¹ Sony Pictures Classics distributed the film in the United States, and it is now available on digital and DVD.^{4 • 5}

References

1. 一个都不能少（1999年张艺谋执导的剧情片）, Baidu Baike
2. Not One Less, European Film Academy
3. 「张垣印记」记经典纪实电影《一个都不能少》, The Paper (澎湃新闻)
4. Not One Less, Rotten Tomatoes
5. Not One Less, Sony Pictures Entertainment
6. 'Not One Less' Proves a Departure for Zhang, Los Angeles Times
7. Busan International Film Festival archive, 1999
8. Not One Less, Columbia University review
9. 人民日报 1999-09-14 电子版
10. Venice to society, The Guardian

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films late 1990s › Released in 1999

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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