It’s all about the kids. Not One Less isn’t a particularly touching movie. It doesn’t flaunt a strong appeal to ethos. There is only one scene where any form of crying comes into screen real estate. Watching the 1999 film has he feel of a Discovery channel documentary on the life of an Amazonian tribe. It’s simply the presence of primary schoolers and their 13-year-old teacher that have driven this film to success.

Of the dull few plot elements that compose Not One Less one stands out. The climax, as “Teacher” Wei appeals to the world on television, has dual purposes. As Wei appeals to the city to find her lost pupil, Zhang Huike, she is appealing to film’s audience on the state of Chinese education. Yimou Zhang’s strategically molded this scene with a political purpose in mind: I believe the reporter purposefully questions Wei on the state of Chinese education. As if the selling point of Not One Less, the audience will leave the film with a minimum of the reporter’s dialog swimming in their head. This combined with the credible tears of a 13-year-old ensure that the audience takes away a negative image of rural Chinese education.

Not One Less presents the human condition in China. It models the stress between rural and urban landscapes. It maps the differences in community structures: how locals group together and how urban residents break apart. The film functions as a documentary on modern human life. It was the introduction children and tears that supplied the emotion criteria to call Not One Less a film with a message.