Not One Less (1999)

"Not One Less" is a Chinese dramatic movie directed by Zhang Yimou, released in 1999 in the People's Republic of China.

It is about a 13-year old substitute teacher, Wei Minzhi, who is teaching at a small school in the Chinese countryside for one month. The original teacher tells Wei to not lose any children in the classroom and he will thus reward her with a bonus to her payment. But that seems impossible when the class troublemaker, Zhang, drops out of school to pursue work in the city for his family. She, and her students, try to make enough money so she can go to the city to retrieve him. As she finally gets to the city, she tries to find Zhang only to find that the other children that he came with say that they lost him. After all different kinds of methods to find him, her perseverance bears fruit as a radio station manager helps her by putting her on the show for a segment on education in rural parts of China. This leads to Zhang, who is on the street begging for food, hear her on the radio and proceeds to go to the station. Wei and Zhang are finally reunited and sent back to the small village with all kinds of school donations from the listeners.

This movie is about the educational reform that the government placed top priority in the 1990s. The Chinese government made a law that children needed to take nine years of education. But this was difficult as rural areas of the country were not able to provide good education: teachers, school facilities. And also there was a large dropout rate as children were sent to work to provide for the family.

I found the movie to be interesting as it showed a different side of China. China, today, is the world's greatest power and is often shown its major cities. Even when the world economy is going down, China is going up. It is different to see a rural China and an actual true Chinese tale of its common people.

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

Eat Drink Man Woman is a 1994 Taiwanese film directed by Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain). The film was a critical success and lead to a 2001 American remake titled Tortilla Soup.

Chu, a widowed, semi-retired gourmet Chinese chef is the father to three daughters. He is an old man who has lost his wife, and his sense of taste. However, he still makes elaborate Chinese dishes for his Sunday family dinners. The movie mostly revolves around the lives of his three daughters.

Jia-Jen, the eldest daughter, is a brokenhearted school teacher. She is a devout Christian and is occasionally pestered for not having a husband, at her age. Her being heartbroken is actually a cover-up for her not being able to find a man. But she actually finds love with the school's new volleyball coach.

Jia-Chien, the second eldest, is an independent business woman. She is very career-oriented and wants to move out of the family home. She has occasional sex with her ex-boyfriend but she meets a man through her work which ended up not working out. It is to note that she is the only one to not be with a man, in the end. But it is fine as she pursues her past dream of being a gourmet chef just like her father.

Jia-Ning, the youngest, is a part-timer. She works at a fast-food restaurant and becomes close with her fellow employee's on-and-off ex-boyfriend. They eventually date. She is actually the first one to move out of the family home because of an unexpected pregnancy.

I found this movie to be very well done and quite enjoyable. Little things that I picked up while watching this movie was distinguishably Taiwanese. From Jia-Jen's Christianity, Jia-Chen's high profile rank in her career, and Jia-Ning's part-time job at a western fast food chain.

Nikita (1990)

(after Nikita destroys her paper target with an automatic pistol)

Professur de tir: You've used one of these before?

Nikita: Not on paper.

Nikita is a 1990 French action movie written and directed by Luc Besson. Despite having mostly poor reviews, it was remade by Warner Bros. and also into a TV series. It stars Anne Parillaud as Nikita, a junkie turned into government assassin, and Tcheky Karyo, her program mentor and advisor, who also should be noted remains nameless.

In the beginning of the movie, Nikita is a junkie. During a violent and unsuccessful burglary, she in a drug-induced state, coldly kills a police officer. She is then sentenced to life in prison but instead is taken to a secret government training facility to become an assassin. At first, she is violently unwilling, then disobedient. But after having a touching moment with Karyo's character, she accepts her training and becomes calmer. After she finishes her training, she is sent out to the real world to live as a civilian and to wait for further orders whenever they come.

She enjoys her freedom as she lives with her new, unsuspecting boyfriend in their apartment. The orders start coming in and she executes them with great success. But her final order goes horribly wrong which, in the end, leads her to run away from everything: her boyfriend, the government, and Paris.

I found the movie to be quite a bore. And for a Cross-Cultural Film class, there was really nothing French about it, except for the language. All in all, it seemed like a bad, cliche Hollywood action movie.