The Golden Lion-winner in Venice, Zhang Yimou's Not One Less (Yi ge dou bu neng shao) was produced with the help of government funding yet is still a highly critical commentary on pover¬ty and child labour in modern-day China. Known as "the peasant director" because of his many films set in the Chinese coun¬tryside, Zhang's latest offering is neverthe¬less a departure from previous films like Ju dou and Raise the Red Lantern. Here, the focus is on a small village school which becomes the responsibility of a barely literate 13-year-old girl when the teacher has to go away for a month. This she takes seriously, leading the entire class on a misguided trip to the city to search for the class trouble-maker who has disappeared.