A Big Tip For Take Out!

Check out >Take Out, which opens today at the Quad Cinema (34 West 13th St). It's an exquisitely minimalist low budget gem of a film by Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou about a stressful rainy day in Manhattan in the life of an illegal Chinese immigrant -- Ming Ding (Charles Jang), working as a take-out bike delivery man for a Chinese restaurant, who has to make $800 before nightfall to appease loan sharks. The movie follows him as he makes scores of deliveries to hundreds of apartments (“You no speakee English...” one guy tactlessly asks). The filmmakers are also able to capture the wonderfully detailed operation of the restaurant and the people who work there create a compelling, richly detailed portrait of life on the other side of the doorway.