NOT ONE LESS: A REVIEW



‘Not one less’ is a fantastic Chinese movie which has won several awards in CAN

film festival.

 It portrays the journey of a 13 year old girl to the maturity of a school

teacher. Miss.Wei, a girl of 13 was appointed as a substitute teacher in the

 absence of  teacher Gao, in a remote rural school in China. The school has very poor infrastructure.

The children studying in the school were also very poor. Most of them stay in the old
school building. At first, Wei did not take much interest in teaching. Her aim was just to
get 50 Yuan. When she hears the diary entry of the class monitor on teacher Gao, she
introspects into herself. She realizes that it is her mission to teach and love the kids.         

As the title indicates, we can see Ms. Wei’s constant struggle to retain the number
of children in school, ie 26, till Mr. Gao comes. Mr. Gao doesn’t want any more children
to get dropped out of the school. Or else she won’t get the promised 50 Yuan. It might be
the acute poverty at home lead to her indifference to children. But once she starts loving
them, they reciprocate her love. Wei’s one man fight to retain a child who was selected to
the sports school takes another turn. We see a picture of Wei and pupils work with one
heart and mind even in a tile factory to bring back, Huike, a dropout.

Teacher Wei’s perspectives take a new dimension from the moment she was
thrown out of the bus. Her constant perseverance and unshakable determination
succeeded in not only in finding Huike, but also solving some of the issues related to the
school and even the village.
The film also throws light on the issue of poverty which leads to a number of
dropouts in the education system of Chinese. It also showcases the unquestionable
influence of media in today’s world.
As a teacher, I think the pedagogy of Miss Wei is in tune with the teaching
methodology we envision. Miss Wei believes in experiential learning. She transacts
experience, not information. Her class is an example of a constructivist classroom. She is
able to create collaboration and discussion in her classroom. She, in fact, doesn’t teach
anything. But she facilitates learning. She enables her learners construct language. ‘Not
one Less’ is the story of a substitute teacher. She is a teacher who took her students
from ‘crayons to perfume’.