Not One Less - Production and Cast

Production and Cast

Not One Less was Zhang Yimou's ninth film, but only the second not to star long-time collaborator Gong Li (the first was his 1997 Keep Cool). For this film, he cast only amateur actors whose real-life names and occupations resembled those of characters they played in the film—as The Philadelphia Inquirer's Steven Rea described the performances, the actors are just "people playing variations of themselves in front of the camera". For instance, Tian Zhenda, who played the mayor, was the real-life mayor of a small village, and the primary actors Wei Minzhi and Zhang Huike were selected from among thousands of students in rural schools. (The names and occupations of the film's main actors are listed in the table below.) The movie was filmed on location at Chicheng County's Shuiquan Primary School, and in the city of Zhangjiakou; both locations are in Hebei province.

The movie was filmed in a documentary-like, "neorealist" style involving hidden cameras and natural lighting. There are also, however, elements of heavy editing—for example, Shelly Kraicer noted that many scenes have frequent, rapid cuts, partially as a result of filming with inexperienced actors.

Zhang had to work closely with government censors during production of the film. He related how the censors "kept reminding not to show China as too backward and too poor", and said that on the title cards at the end of the movie he had to write that the number of rural children dropping out of school each year was one million, although he believed the number was actually three times that. Not One Less was Zhang's first film to enjoy government support and resources.