I finished watching Zhang Yimou’s Not One Less last night and I spent the entire movie somewhat disoriented and pleasantly surprised. It was like a great magic trick, where you know there must be an illusion at work, but the reality of it is so convincing that you cannot fathom how they could fake such a thing.
Not One Less is about a 13-year old girl who is called on to be a substitute teacher in a little mountain village. When one of her students, an 8- year old kid, is sent to the city to find work, she sets out to bring him back.
The movie has the typical Chinese pacing which, to an American audience, is a bit slow. It’s completely devoid of the Technicolor explosions of his later films (Hero, Curse of the Golden Flower), but it’s so richly textured that you don’t mind. Not One Less is a real look into rural China and the things we take for granted in our own education systems.
I’m a big softie, so this movie really hit home for me. The performances (if that’s what they were), were so raw and natural that it really put you there with them.
Quite a moving little picture, and well worth your time.
(And yes, it’s in Mandarin, but many of the rural accents are so thick that I couldn’t make out a word they were saying.)
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Hey Frank,
I watched this movie about a month ago and I loved it also, Zhang Yimou is a master in getting the most out of his actors and making them look very natural and beleivable, 13 year old girl was excellent in this movie, this is a movie you can watch twice and do not get bored, as you said the language is difficult to understand but it teaches you a lot about the culture, which is also very important when you learn languages.
Cheers
Brent
I came across this movie too recently and stayed up way too late watching it. At first I thought it took place in the forties or fifties so you can imagine what an eyeopener it was when I realized that it actually takes place in the nineties.
Yup, very enjoyable film. I’m relieved to find I’m not alone in failing to understand the dialogue. Another decent film (in Mandarin) is Wang Xiaoshuai’s ‘Shanghai Dreams’.
I need to watch that movie again. I watched it once years ago…
Thanks for the comments, guys and gals! I think watching these movies is really helpful in terms of training the ear. It’s a bonus that they’re such good films, too!
I’ll have to look up Shanghai Dreams, and I’ve got a few other movies I’ve seen recently that need talking about. Stay tuned!