Not One Less (1999)

一个都不能少

106 min ·G

Drama

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Teacher Gao loves the students in his poor village and is devoted to educating them in the hope of their greater futures. When he is called away to tend to his dying mother for a month, the Mayor calls in an inexperienced 13 year-old replacement, Wei Minzhi; much to Teacher Gao's dismay. Teacher Gao cannot stand the thought of losing anymore students: he has already lost twelve to ever-increasing attrition, and he promises Wei an extra 10 yuan if she succeeds in ensuring that upon his return, there will be not one less. Wei's difficult mission to fulfill Teacher Gao's wish and her own concern for the welfare of the children begins.

Flocks 1

Fifth Generation Chinese Cinema 1 members · 38 movies

The Fifth Generation (第五代) are the Beijing Film Academy's landmark class of 1982 — the first cohort admitted after the Cultural Revolution, trained in a system that had been shuttered for over a decade. Their films rejected the socialist-realist tradition of earlier Communist-era cinema, replacing ideological didacticism with visually lush, allegorical work rooted in Chinese history, folk memory, and landscape. Yellow Earth (Chen Kaige, 1984), shot by Zhang Yimou as cinematographer, is considered the movement's founding text. Zhang Yimou (张艺谋, born 1950) became the most internationally celebrated Chinese filmmaker of his generation: Red Sorghum won the Golden Bear at Berlin (1988); Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou, and To Live are among the great films of the 1990s. He later moved into wuxia spectacle (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) and directed both Beijing Olympics ceremonies (2008 and 2022). Chen Kaige (陈凯歌, born 1952) directed Farewell My Concubine (1993), the first Chinese film to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes — a sweeping epic about performance, identity, sexuality and loyalty across decades of Chinese history. Tian Zhuangzhuang (田壮壮, born 1952) represents the movement's most uncompromising pole: The Horse Thief (1986) and The Blue Kite (1993) pushed formal and political limits that neither colleague dared approach.