Thieves. Reception Cannes withdrawal Neither Not One Less nor Zhang's other 1999 film The Road Home was selected for the 1999 Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection, the most prestigious competition in the festival, where several of Zhang's earlier films had won awards. The rationale is uncertain; Shelly Kraicer and Zhang Xiaoling claim that Cannes officials viewed the Not One Less happy ending, with the main characters' conflicts resolved by the generosity of city dwellers and higher-up officials, as pro-China propaganda, while Zhu Ying claims that the officials saw it and The Road Home as too anti-government. Rather than have his films shown in a less competitive portion of the festival, Zhang withdrew them both in protest, stating that the movies were apolitical. In an open letter published in the Beijing Youth Daily, Zhang accused the festival of being motivated by other than artistic concerns, and criticized the Western perception that all Chinese films must be either "pro-government" or "anti-government", referring to it as a "discrimination against Chinese films". Critical response Rotten Tomatoes gave it a "fresh" 95% approval rating, based on 43 reviews and Metacritic gave it a 73, signifying "generally favorable reviews". Many focused on the film's ending title cards: several compared them to a public service announcement, and Philip Kemp of Sight & Sound wrote, "All that's missing is the address we should send donations to." Zhang Xiaoling, on the other hand, considered the titles to be an implicit criticism of the state of rural education in China, saying, "the news that voluntary contributions have helped 15 percent of the pupils to return to school is aimed to give rise to a question: what about the remaining 85 percent?" The disagreement about the title cards is also reflected in the critical reaction to the rest of the film's resolution. Kemp described the ending as "feelgood" and criticized the film for portraying officials and generous cityfolk as coming to the rescue, The Washington Posts Desson Howe called the ending "flag-waving", and The Independents Gilbert Adair called it "sugary". Alberto Barbera of the Venice Film Festival, on the other hand, said that while the end of the film may have been like propaganda, the rest was a "strong denunciation of a regime that is unable to assure proper education for the country children". Likewise, Zhang Xiaoling argued that although the film superficially appears to praise the city people and officials,