Take Out

This is a documentary style but fictional film about the hardships of a chinese immigrant who works as a Chinese restaurant delivery boy. Although Ming Ding (Charles Jang) came illegally to make money, he is having difficulty saving due to his desire to pay back his family for paying his way over, and thus he has borrowed from a loan shark. But the loan has high interest, leaving him weary and depressed. Since he's fallen behind, the shark has given him until end of day to find the money, or suffer the consequences of two bruisers sent to find him.


A coworker (who provides some humor to the film) sympathizes and has no money to give, but helps in his way by letting Ming take all the deliveries for the day and coaching him on being more personable so he can get better tips. A mistake in an order brings out Ming's frustrations. But we worry if the amount of deliveries today can pay back the hundreds of dollars he still needs, especially when he has a bike mishap.

There's nothing flashy about Ming's job nor his life (or the film). His interactions with customers are dull and pretty much faceless, unless there is a delay or he makes a mistake. The film is made as is, if it rains, it rains. If an ambulance passes by causing a disturbance, so be it. The restaurant is also authentic in look and activity. I wonder if the deliveries made were also real, a variety of New York citizens, how "verite" was this cinema?

You can see Ming and his coworkers are average but real people. The plot is very simple, and most of the film is just following Ming on deliveries and showing cheap customers getting really complainy about not getting a discount on a $5 order, but the situations are very real to me. It takes a long time for Ming to become demoralized, but his homesickness and sadness is authentically portrayed. He is buoyed by a photo of his wife and the son he has never seen in person.

At the end of the film, you can see that although Ming's story is personal to him, it is not a new story, and will be repeated time and again throughout America.