By building its foundations on a hierarchical structure, the American dream is destined to fail. Sean Baker may have only broken through to mainstream audiences with Tangerine (2015), but that thesis has been at the heart of his work from the offset. Co-directed and written with Shih-Ching Tsou (who would go on to produce nearly all of his later films), his second feature Take Out (2004) digs deep into the inherent lie of the capitalist narrative, holding a social realist lens to the lives of immigrants living under the radar in the United States. In doing so, Baker and Tsou ask why their daily struggles go so undervalued.

Take Out opens on two heavies busting into a cramped New York bed-sit populated mostly by Chinese immigrants, demanding one Ming Ding (Charles Jang) pay off his debt to a local loan shark—plus interest. The rub? $800 by nightfall. The rest of the film follows Ding as he attempts to hit that deadline, first canvasing his friends for cash before resigning himself to earning the rest during his shift as a delivery man for a small neighbourhood Chinese take-out. Cycling endlessly through torrential rain, we get a ground-level view of the crappy tips, casual racism, and cranky customers his daily rush entails, the ticking clock turning onwards just out of frame.

Take Out body image

Baker and Tsou perpetually position the audience as outsiders looking in, typically shooting Ding's odyssey using a long telephoto lens to emphasise the simultaneous proximity and distance experienced at street level in New York. Shot on digital at a time when the medium was still only just receiving mainstream acceptance—Attack of the Clones (2002), the first mainstream blockbuster shot primarily on digital, only came out two years earlier—and was still viewed somewhat sceptically in independent circles—despite the critical success of the early Dogme 95 films—Take Out feels remarkably modern. Not only does the low-end fuzz of a digital sensor evoke the warmth of film, it also aesthetically mimics the consumer-grade camcorders viewers would have shot their own home movies on. It feels real.

In a move toward voyeurism over cinéma vérité, the camera draws attention to its presence through its constant floating and awkward digital zooms, lending Take Out an air of fly-on-the-wall nausea even if the techniques feel dated by the ensuing slew of The Office (2001) knock-offs. But for the most part this is a very grounded thriller. Baker and Tsou know to linger on the small realities of Ding's work as a delivery man, focusing on hands swirling through the foggy water of a rice cooker with the same intensity as the moments of violence. Shot on a shoestring budget in a working Chinese restaurant, the sweat practically peels off the walls as the actors slip around the actual workers—Baker himself noted that if a chef ever stepped into frame they'd simply chop their head out of the shot to make it usable.

This new 4k digital restoration produced by Alex Coco—which involved going back to the original locations, suppressing the mini-DV tapes to 2k, shooting them out to celluloid, then rescanning and regrading the results, as well as redoing the sound mix—looks far better than a standard definition film from the early ‘00s has any right to. As for supplements, this Criterion release is a little scant on extras, but the new 30 minute documentary about the making of Take Out is a real treat. It's a particular joy to see Big Sister (Wang-Thye Lee), the grouchy but warm-hearted pseudo-matriarch in the restaurant (both on screen and in reality) recount the reception of the film in her local neighbourhood, underscoring the authenticity to Baker and Tsou's approach.

More than anything, Take Out recognises that when you're on the breadline, life has to go on. Personal emergencies don't stop the world from turning—work never relents and the city never slows. Friends and family parse out help to Ding with varying levels of sympathy and tact; his best friend demands to know the origins of the debt before giving him some stern advice and $150, while his cousin passes off the cash with a brusque simplicity, letting the act of giving speak for itself. What matters is that each interaction feels believable, a recognition that the only thing more human than making a bad decision out of desperation is an outburst of disappointment that gives way to unconditional support.

Special Features

New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by directors Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack
Audio commentary featuring Baker, Tsou, and actor Charles Jang
New interviews with Baker, Tsou, Jang, and actors Wang-Thye Lee and Jeng-Hua Yu
Program about the making of the film
Deleted scenes
Screen test
Trailer
New English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by filmmaker and author J. J. Murphy