Shih-Ching Tso co-directed Take Out, Sean Baker’s first feature film; it premiered at the inaugural Slamdance Film Festival in 2004 and announced a young filmmaker with a distinct voice was here to stay in American independent cinema. The storyline of Take Out is voiced almost entirely in Chinese language, and depicts Ming (played by Charles Jang), an illegal immigrant from China living in New York City’s Chinatown, having to come up with $800 before the end of the day or his debt to the smugglers who brought him into this country will be doubled.
Baker and co-director Tso, who eventually produced several of his subsequent movies, show a desire to document the lives of those who live on the edge of society for various reasons. Take Out is about a delivery person, although one who is undocumented in America. This aligns Ming with the subjects of Baker’s later films by revealing some of the ways that he is vulnerable beyond the reach of law and subject to moral condemnation.
Since its release twenty years ago, however, times have changed; today’s North American life includes many delivery guys especially in the era of Ubereats and Doordash. In essence, Baker’s characters move beyond being mere portraits into telling us what contemporary life looks like such as that of precarious workers found among gig economy laborers. Take Out which centers on immigrants and food delivery feels more timely now than ever before.
However, he goes beyond this subject matter and themes in Take Out. As a result, Baker’s works are distinguishable from those of other contemporary directors, who mostly focus on poverty or taboo topics. With a social-realist style, his strong storytelling instincts bring attention to the socio-economic conditions of his characters. Hence, his films possess stakes and narrative structures that engage audiences cinematically.
From China, Ming has gone to live in America where he is settled at New York City’s Chinatown as a delivery person in one of the Chinese restaurants owned by Big Sister (Wang-Thye Lee). In coming to America, we learn that he has come with the hope of securing legal residency for himself and bringing over his wife as well as their child who he has never seen. As the film starts Ming is confronted by his smugglers who got him into New York over the Canadian border. They demand that he must come up with $800 by end of day or they will double what they owe him. It gets everything going as set up for us and there are clear timelines given by the film with high stakes involved.
To bridge the gap of around $500, Ming has to borrow some money from a relative and earn tips and other incomes through working for a whole day without taking any rest. The rain-soaked streets of Manhattan, pedaling his bicycle, delivering Chinese food all day long.
The film has an early 2000s digital video that is made in naturalistic style. Right from the beginning, the documentary-like approach taken by Baker and Tso is evident and sustained throughout the movie. There are moments when one may think he/she is watching a real documentary only if not for the impossibility of such a camera finding such a story as well as capturing some of what it does. Baker’s and Tso’s digital camera fits exactly into this milieu.
Early digital video characteristics enabled filmmakers to shoot in darker environments without the need for longer exposures required on handheld film cameras especially when shooting in low light or fluorescent and neon-lit nighttime scenes. In addition to anticipating many elements in Baker’s subsequent works including Anora (a film released in 2024), Millenium Mambo was reminiscent of some aspects of Hou Hsiao-hsien Taiwanese masterpieces from early 2000s.
Take Out is a film that spends a lot of time on depicting the way work in a Chinese restaurant has been structured by repetitions of the day. The movie, for one, shows how his workmates at Ming light burners and take orders, and how he locks his bicycle and goes upstairs to the cheap apartments that are scattered all over Lower East Side. Afterward, we are shown how different types of customers feel when Ming arrives late or messes up with their orders. One such customer played by Karren Karagulian (Toros in Anora) who demands chicken instead of beef.
Occasionally, it appears as if it is actually dangerous for Ming to do what he does. It comes off like there is suspense and intense uneasiness about something. This sometimes permits the delivery boy into the private spaces lives of those he is delivering food to while they go in oblivion about it. We see things from a delivery man’s point of view rather than through eyes of a client who is able to look at him only for an instant or two. When set against his repetitive day, this gives quite another picture of what work involves here.
The film also emphasizes dialogues between Ming and his colleagues, most of whom are also illegal immigrants. They point out how much hard it has become to come to the United States and stay there after September 11. The specter of 9/11 looms over this movie in ways that have nothing to do with the so-called War on Terror. For instance, Wei (played by Justin Wan), a cook, sports a “United We Stand” baseball cap. Some have moved past it and others are still paying for their wrongdoings. In one quiet moment when Ming is down Young tells him “It will all pay off.”
And this is precisely what Baker’s films are about when he presents almost every character in America as knowing well enough that even though they may be humiliated and put through hell, at some point everything will suddenly come right for them. Everyone is trying hard to find a way out of their current lives. According to the system everyone is extra special and can bend rules only because they want something more than anyone else does, according to their dreams or ambitions or whatever motivates them. How could it be? Is anything really worth it?
In conclusion, through “Take Out”, Baker does succeed in providing moments of grace and pathos that truly squeeze our hearts deeply within us at times too small for words to fully express these feelings.
In one dramatic moment, Ming stops on a corner and pulls out a small picture of his wife and child whom he carries around. At that point the soundtrack stops abruptly, and in this quietness we can comprehend why Ming keeps getting through all the mistreatment and tiredness.
Take Out is among Baker’s most optimistic films though it can also be called gritty. It’s definitely worth watching as it signaled the advent of a significant American indie film maker capturing perfectly the early 21st century.
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