Take Out

Have you ever given much thought to the average deliveryman? I confess, I haven't, except if I'm frustrated when they can't find my apartment and are calling or if they didn't just leave the food at the door like I requested on the app. Delivery workers are an invisible workforce behind the convenience of food delivery apps. 

Yet, as research by Xingchen Hao shows, the work intensity of takeaway riders is extremely high. Their work is not only stressful but dangerous. Just last month, a delivery driver for a Chinese restaurant in neighboring Connecticut was shot and killed, and two years ago, an Uber Eats driver was dismembered in what police called a "demonic" murder.

These dangers and stress are thoroughly explored in the 2004 film Take Out, written and directed by Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker, about a typical-yet-untypical day in the life of a New York Chinese restaurant delivery man. It's a powerful, practically unfiltered critique of the treatment of workers and immigrants, visualizing how systemic vulnerabilities impact undocumented workers in ways few other films have done. 

Take Out takes place in New York, where it's raining a lot and probably quite humid, which might explain some of the acne flare-ups on the face of a man named Ming. Ming, played by Charles Jang, is an undocumented worker delivering take-out Chinese food to countless people in upper Manhattan. It's a dangerous job, no doubt, hustling back and forth on a bicycle through all that rain in the thick of New York City's traffic, and one's cinematic internal barometer is primed for something profoundly wrong to happen to Ming. How could it not? 

The films of writer, director, editor, and producer Baker, who made history earlier this month by becoming the first person to win four Oscars for the same movie, often focus on the powerless. In his three most recent films (Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Anora), these characters have been sex workers. With his third film, Take Out (which is more of a documentary-style work of realism), Baker and his team focus on a perfect example of those without power: undocumented workers. In this case, the protagonist has essentially no power, which explains just about every predicament he is in, every decision he makes, and every possible consequence facing him. The details of the state of Ming's cramped kitchen, which he shares with other presumably undocumented immigrants and needs repairs, provide the viewer with sufficient information about his living conditions—it's an indictment of a system that exploits workers and offers them few protections. With such a detail, the filmmakers don't need to spell out for the viewers why he is powerless against a variety of vultures; it speaks for itself.

Ming is a worker who finds himself in several exceptionalities, not simply related to his economic or immigration status. Ming owes a lot of money to those who smuggled him out of China and into the United States. Invading his home, they assault him, take a thousand dollars, and demand that he pay the remaining eight hundred by the end of the day. Ming has no other choice but to work like hell at work that day, and fortunately for him, his charismatic co-worker Young (Jeng-Hua) has offered to let him take most of the deliveries for the day so he can collect most of the tip money. He never seems to thank those who help him financially, perhaps because he's embarrassed. He also can't understand the chit-chat (or complaints) the customers are providing as they pay.

Most of the customers exhibit different shades of rudeness. One of them is frequent-Baker collaborator Karren Karagulian, who has been in all of Baker's films since then, in a role as an insolent customer whose name in the credits is "Chicken or beef." (It's worth also pointing out now that Jang, who is actually of Korean descent but learned Chinese while studying in Taiwan and is not a professional actor—he was working for Google at the time—appeared in last year's Anora as the Las Vegas casino manager whom Mark Eydelshteyn berates.) One can tell that much of the dialogue is not scripted, like just about all of the lines belonging to Wang-Thye Lee, who is the manager and cashier of the restaurant and the mother figure for the men working at the shop. The background noise of the workers in restaurant, her banter with the customers, and the camera work all elevate the feeling of organized chaos in this world, and the handheld camera helps us feel like we're flies on the greasy walls. According to a New York Times article, the restaurant where Take Out was filmed was closed not long after filming had completed, and the filmmakers weren't able to find Ms. Lee afterward. 

Films like Tangerine and Anora may be more fun than Take Out, but the latter's documentary-like realism removes any narrative artifice, plunging the viewer into Ming's plight without excessive melodrama. Likewise, the editing is a lot more simplistic than in something like Anora (one of the categories for which Baker won an Oscar), and the repetitious nature of Ming's deliveries may feel taxing to the average viewer, but imagine how laborious it feels for Ming? 

What is most noteworthy about the film is how Tsou and Baker are able to efficiently utilize a budget of only $3,000 and present a potent case for why (at the very least), workers in this kind of economy deserve an immense level of respect, safety protocols, protection, and fair wages than practically any other sort of medium could. I hope I will heed what surely is their intent by at the very least not getting irritated if my food is delayed. Take Out is not simply about the day of your average delivery worker—it's a critical illumination of labor injustices and why audiences should be outraged by them.