Wei Minzhi, picked by Zhang Yimou for *Not One Less*, stayed true to herself: no hype, studied hard, went abroad, and now makes down-to-earth films for ordinary people.
Forty years ago, Zhang Yimou traveled all over the Taihang Mountains to cast *Not One Less*. The girl he ultimately chose was a mountain village girl named Wei Minzhi, who clung tightly to her piece of chalk and refused to let go.
A few days ago, she suddenly appeared in the public eye, and many people stared at the screen in stunned silence for quite a while. Her face was natural and unadorned, and one could still make out the contours of her former self in her eyebrows and eyes.The first question on everyone’s mind was: For more than twenty years, she’s never sought the limelight or tried to cash in on her fame—where has she been, and what kind of life has she been living?
Many people still remember the wind on the Taihang Mountains in 1998. Zhang Yimou, carrying his camera equipment, crouched against the wall of a rural elementary school, while the room full of children timidly kept their heads down, too afraid to make a sound.except for that skinny little girl, who craned her neck, her eyes filled with stubborn determination. No matter what anyone said, she refused to back down, focused on just one thing—making sure every single child in her class stayed in the classroom.
Later, that movie became a nationwide sensation, and the spotlight on the award stage fell on her. The cameras followed her as she ran, but she clutched the hem of her shirt, turned around, and boarded the bus back to her village. That night, by the light of a kerosene lamp, she pored over her textbooks, the page edges worn thin and curled.
No one expected her to later decide to apply to a university in Xi’an. Back then, she studied vocabulary with a dictionary in hand until her voice was hoarse. Carrying a letter of recommendation from her professor and with just enough money in her pocket to cover three months’ worth of living expenses, she set off for a foreign country on her own.
While living abroad, she once washed dishes at a Chinese restaurant, where splashes of water would soak the sticky notes she used to jot down vocabulary words. She also often stayed up late into the night at the library, using the desk lamp to organize her notes. She rarely spoke to anyone about these hardships; only when she occasionally ran into someone she knew would she mention that she wanted to make films that were heartfelt and relatable to ordinary people.
She’s stubborn; once she’s set her mind on a course, she won’t turn back.
Later, she actually did just that. Instead of chasing trends or sensationalizing topics, she holed up in a mountain hollow to document the daily lives of left-behind children, and immersed herself on construction sites to capture the lives of migrant workers.In 2023, standing on the podium at an international awards ceremony, she wore a shirt faded white from repeated washing and addressed the audience: “I’m still that same girl from back then who didn’t want a single child to drop out of school. Now, I just want to create works that stand the test of time for ordinary people.”
We rarely hear from her these days, and she doesn’t act like a star at all. What she’s always surrounded by is a hot, freshly cooked meal, a script she’s written halfway through, and the steady footsteps she takes one step at a time.
There’s no shortage of people like this around us—people who aren’t swayed by others’ judgments, who don’t chase after empty titles, and who simply move forward steadily in the direction they’ve chosen. Living this way is, after all, the most authentic way to live.
