Take Out is a 2004 American independentdrama film directed and written by Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou. Tsou's co-directorial debut feature and Baker's second work, the film follows an undocumentedChinese immigrant working as a deliveryman for a Chinese take-out shop in New York City.
Take Out initially premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2004, but did not see a wider release until 2008. It received acclaim from critics, and holds a 100% rating on film aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.
Plot
Take Out is a day-in-the-life of Ming Ding, an undocumented Chinese immigrant working as a deliveryman for a Chinese take-out shop in New York City. Ming is behind with payments on his huge debt to the smugglers who brought him to the United States. The collectors have given him until the end of the day to deliver the money that is due. After borrowing most of the money from friends and relatives, Ming realizes that the remainder must come from the day's delivery tips. In order to do so, he must make more than double his average daily income.
Cast
Charles Jang as Ming Ding - A determined, reticent delivery man who is racing against time to come up with the late payment owed to snakehead smugglers. Ming came to the United States with the goal of creating a better future for his wife and child back in China.
Jeng-Hua Yu as Young - A fellow delivery man and Ming's closest friend at the take-out. Young is a happy-go-lucky slacker who provides comic relief to the mundane work day. He is the only one at the take-out who is aware of Ming's dilemma.
Wang-Thye Lee as Big Sister - The cashier and managerial figure of the take-out. Big Sister is a spunky woman with street smarts who juggles the orders and operations of the take-out.
Justin Wan as Wei - A cook at the take-out who has been in the country longer than most of the others. Wei's sense of seniority frequently lands him in minor disagreements of opinion and power with the other workers.
Style
In a social-realist style, the camera follows Ming on his deliveries throughout the upper Manhattan neighborhood where social and economic extremes exist side by side.[citation needed] Intercutting between Ming's deliveries and the daily routine of the restaurant, Take Out presents a harshly real look at the daily lives of illegal Chinese immigrants in New York City. Baker said, "We were heavily influenced by cinema verite."[4]
Sean has also referenced Lars Von Triers 1998 film The Idiots as an influence, which he has also mentioned often as one of his favourite films, as well as citing the film movement Dogme 95 as well as an influence which was founded by Von Trier and often filmed with digital cameras.[citation needed]
Production
Take Out was filmed in and near upper-Manhattan, New York, in the spring of 2003 on a budget of $3000.[5] The film was shot on digital video due to both the cinema vérité style and a non-existent budget with an ensemble cast of both professional and nonprofessional actors[6] while shooting without a full crew in an actual take-out restaurant during operating hours.[7][8]
Charles Jang is a Korean-American actor born on Long Island who learned Chinese while studying abroad in Taiwan. Shih-Tsing Tsou, who is from Taiwan, assumed that he was from China when he auditioned.[4]
The film was not given a limited release through CAVU Pictures until 2008. On September 1, 2009, Kino Entertainment released Take Out in the US on a Region 1 DVD.[10][11][12][13] In September 2022, the film was given a Blu-ray release as part of the Criterion Collection.[3]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 27 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10.The website's consensus reads: "Take Out presents an unvarnished view of one immigrant's experiences as a restaurant deliveryman – and leaves the audience with plenty of food for thought."[14]
On Metacritic the film has a score of 80% based on 10 critics, indicating “generally favourable reviews”[15]
Audience members at a screening assumed the actor who played Ming Ding was in real peril and asked how he was doing, when in reality Jang was working for Google and studying for his M.B.A..[4]
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