not one less (yi ge dou bu neng shao) - zhang yimou - 1999

"Not One Less" is not only about the poor in China's remote rural areas, but could be dedicated to them; we sense that Zhang Yimou, the director of such sophisticated films as "Raise the Red Lantern" and "Shanghai Triad," is returning here to memories of the years from 1968 to 1978, when he worked as a rural laborer under the Cultural Revolution. His story is simple, unadorned, direct. Only the margins are complicated.

The actors are not professionals, but local people playing characters with their own names. Wei Minzhi, a red-cheeked 13-year-old who usually looks very intent, stars as Wei, a substitute teacher, also very intent. The village's schoolmaster has been called away to his mother's deathbed, and Wei's assignment is to teach the grade school class.

To assist her in this task, she is supplied with one piece of chalk for every day the teacher will be away. And she gets strict instructions: Since the school's subsidy depends on its head count, she is to return the full class to the teacher--"not one less." Keeping all the students in class is more important than anything she teaches them, and indeed she isn't a lot more advanced than her students. This isn't one of those movies where the inspired teacher awakens the minds and spirits of her class; Wei copies lessons on the board and blocks the door.

These early scenes are interesting in the way they don't exploit the obvious angles of the story. This isn't a pumped-up melodrama or an inspirational tearjerker, but a matter-of-fact look at a poor rural area where necessity is the mother of invention and everything else. When one of her students, Zhang (Zhang Huike), runs away to look for work in the big city, Wei determines to follow him and bring him back. This is not an easy task. It involves raising the money to buy a bus ticket. Wei puts the whole class to work shifting bricks for a local factory to earn the funds. She eventually does get to the city, Jiangjiakou, and her encounters with bureaucracy there are a child's shadow of the heroine's problems in Zhang Yimou's "The Story of Qui Ju" (1992).

to live (huozhe) - zhang yimou - 1994

Zhang Yimou, often regarded as China's leading contemporary filmmaker, directed this drama chronicling the ebb and flow of one family's fortunes, set against the backdrop of China's tumultuous history between the 1940s and the 1970s. Fugui (Ge You) is the father of a once-wealthy family whose addiction to gambling and chronic bad luck causes him to lose his home in a game of dice with Long'er (Ni Dabong).

Fugui's wife Jiazhen (Gong Li) abandons him, and he finds himself working as a peddler, until the man who now owns his home gives him a pair of shadow puppets. Fugui learns the art of puppetry and travels as a performer; while on the road, he is arrested by Nationalist forces, until he is liberated by advancing Red Army factions, and he comes him home to his wife and children as they adapt to the nation's new leadership.

While once a lazy spendthrift, Fugui vows to change his ways, and he struggles to become a better worker and citizen. But Fugui and his family soon realize that there is adversity waiting for them around every corner, and the onset of the Cultural Revolution makes it clear that China's new regime can be as corrupt and callous as the old order.

While a Grand Prize winner at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and recipient of the Best Foreign Language Film award at the 1995 BAFTA Awards, Huozhe did not fare well in its homeland. Chinese censors objected to the film's commentary about political abuses in China's past, as well as Zhang Yimou's attempts to present the film at several international festivals. As punishment, he was forced to write a formal apology and was not allowed to make another film for two years.

beijing bicycle (shiqi sui de dan che) - wang xiaoshuai - 2001

Persistence pays off for country boy Guei (Cui Lin) when he lands a coveted job as a bicycle messenger on the teeming streets of Beijing. The silver mountain bike he now rides will be his- once he earns 600 yuan. But just as he makes his final payment, the bicycles is stolen!

On the other side of town, Beijing schoolboy Jian (Lee Bing) longs for a bicycles so he can ride around with his girlfriend Qin (Zhou Xun). Tired of banking on his father's empty promises, he steals a sum of money and buys a used bicycle- the bicycle that once belonged to Guei.

After endless searching, Guei finally tracks down his bicycle- but there are complications. A tug-of-war breaks out with Jian. Then, they try working out a compromise. But the bargain they make takes them on an unexpected journey- a voyage of self discovery that neither of them will ever forget.