Tale of life on the fringe makes for great art

Something special happens when artists focus on the fringe. Take Out is a day in the life that speaks to the unnamed and discounted that literally fuel the Western world. A nondescript New York City Chinese restaurant with only two round tables is home for despotic transplants hustling long hours, dishing out affordable fare to unrelenting customers. It’s a messy job whether you’re a cook sautéing pork and scallions or a deliveryman hoping to squeeze a couple of bucks out of each pit stop unscathed. Fortune cookie reads that this mom and pop joint should deliver a promising turnout if it gets a chance on more than a few niche screens.

It starts with a shakedown. Two shylocks decked in black pound the flimsy door of a pint-sized flat overstocked with a camp of Asian immigrants. They’re looking to shakedown a stray whose interest has compounded since he was smuggled into the States. Meet Ming Ding (Charles Jang), a deliveryman behind in payments who has a wife and child back in China. After getting roughed-up a bit by a metal-headed mallet, he must face the day bruised and under the gun to get cash and avoid more collateral damage to his person.

The razzledazzle of the pilot lights flicker with the daylight’s start. Rice gets a thorough rinse in big metal pots, broccoli is chopped with a cleaver, whole shrimp are defrosted, the fried rice is stirred and stabbed then poured into large Tupperware boats and the shoddy mountain bikes are wheeled out with rainproof features made up of plastic shopping bags tied to the saddle.

Because of the morning’s hammering message, Ding can’t lug a drum of MSG up from the cellar. It’s clearly gonna be a tough day.

Shot in verité style, the handheld camerawork is masterful. Each shot is naturally set and moves with the moment effortlessly. At times, the camera is hiding as the director surely took a guerilla-style gamble in shooting the folks that order-up the goods in their doorways—giving grief to the messenger. POV shots tucked down in stairwells cleverly plotted spots behind doorways and register counters and even underneath metal stovetops mask the camera’s presence and invoke a visceral touch.

The city itself plays a role in this film. But you won’t know it’s Manhattan until about10 minutes in, when Ming Ding routes through a sea of yellow cabs on his way to apartments to drop-off the orders.

There is neither soundtrack nor composer throughout the entire picture. The filmmakers Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker let the soundtrack of New York fill that part. Just the orchestra of car horns, folks mouthing off, sirens constant shriek, the tap-tap-tap and whoosh of rainstorms, assaulting front-door buzzer as it opens up, the scrunching of the windbreaker and the steps up and down tenements and projects galore. Add to the mix the chatter outside; whether it be bickering in Swahili, Spanish, Mandarin or straight-up gangster, it gets its due without the fumbling of extra songs to disturb the purity of the mood. Genius. The cacophony of city sounds is so appropriate and if there is any music it trails from a car bumping a heavy bass or in an apartment where a makeshift music studio’s hip-hop track echoes.

With all the hectic goings on of shuttling back and forth from high rise to high rise, there are a few moments between orders where Ming Ding chats with his buddy Young (Jeng-Hua Yu) about how to grease the customer with a “thank you very much.” Despite the rehearsals, Ding never belts one out. He shows up in his blue denim baseball cap, hand-me-down striped polo and ’80s tapered jeans and hands a receipt written out by Big Sister (Wang-Thye Lee). He takes his money and runs off to the next spot.

While it would be safe to say that the film offers a slice of NYC, it’s more like a pie in terms of execution. The base of clientele runs the gamut of wealth and race: An old Russian woman cheaply bidding “keep the change” as her clinking coinage changes hands, an attractive Puerto Rican girl heeding her mother’s demand that she only tip a buck, an odd pony-tailed musician, a hairy-chested dude bitching about tardiness, a well-dressed European infuriated about his order’s screw up of chicken instead of beef, and an African-American pimp-looking man pissed about his day chiding the mum Ding (who can’t speak a lick) and cussing him out. The cold, hard-looking institutionalized brick and rickety elevators and the desperate tenants of the projects are emphasized. The job’s dangerous, the existence isolating. And that’s just the deliveries.

At the restaurant itself awaits a grumbling sect of folks who are trying to nickel and dime Big Sister at the register. She is quick with her retorts, often dipping below the belt at times. Folks can’t decide what they want. One guy says “a couple of egg rolls” and, when she puts the order through to the male cooks behind her, the dope changes his mind and says “just one.” “F--k you,” she casually jabs in Chinese while tossing frozen spuds into a lava pit of lard. Big Sister takes no mess.

The mechanism of modern times relies on the labors of the keep. They are fellow human beings with a story just as vital as the next. When able to speak amongst his peers, Ding’s personality comes alive and the shyness recedes. What’s remarkable is that through the endless dishes from stove to Styrofoam—it is just one day. Tomorrow, they will do it again and the same headaches, threats, laughs, catnap opps and moments of consternation will be had. A few doors down might be another restaurant with a crew burdened with troubles of feeding a family and working like machines to do so. The film opens a door for their stories to be considered and given ample staging. Nothing is more deserved and timely.

Distributor: CAVU Pictures
Cast: Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu, Wang-Thye Lee and Justin Wan

Directors/Screenwriters/Producers: Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker
Genre: Drama
Rating: Unrated
Running time: 86 min.
Release date: June 6 ltd.