Over the past year or two I’ve watched a number of films by Zhang Yimou, including Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, To Live, and Shanghai Triad. I saw Hero when it was in American theatrical release. I’m currently watching Not One Less (1999) and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) an astonishing pair of films.
What’s astonishing is that they’re utterly different. Not One Less is a realist drama using non-professional actors and is about the students in a small school in contemporary rural China. Curse is an epic about the Imperial court in ancient China and employs lavish sets, grand spectacle, and top-tier professional actors. Curse hardly seems like it’s about people at all; the central characters seem more like minor deities being moved about on-stage by cosmic forces—either that, or grandly colored shadow puppets. By contrast Not One Less is awash in the simple humanity of its characters, especially the children, struggling with their lessons, working to help one of their classmates.
The two films also stand in thematic contrast. And it wasn’t until I’d watched Curse for a second time that I actually managed to understand the plot, while Not One was transparent, step by step, from the start.