{"id":24151,"date":"2013-01-16T23:30:45","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T06:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=24151"},"modified":"2013-01-18T01:11:14","modified_gmt":"2013-01-18T08:11:14","slug":"chinese-take-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=24151","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Take-Out"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ricardo<\/a>
Ricardo Darin and Ignacio Huang in Chinese Take-Out<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Roberto is lugubrious, cantankerous, out of step with the world and quite happy with this state of affairs. His hardware store, in suburban Buenos Aires, is as much excuse for waging war with humanity as it is a means of making a living. He lives alone in a house that he has scarcely changed since his father\u2019s death three decades past; in his free time, he scours newspapers for tales of the absurd and improbable, which he cuts out and pastes in albums with a certain sour satisfaction. All things considered, he seems rather content with his lot.<\/p>\n

\"ricardo<\/a>
Ricardo Darin in Chinese Take-Out<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chinese Take-Out<\/em>, written and directed by Sebastian Borensztein takes an oblique, yet amusing path to exploring the meaning of personal contentment. One understands pretty quickly that Roberto\u2019s gruffness is an elaborate construct, intended\u00a0 \u2013 consciously or not \u2013 to protect him from the caprices of an uncertain world. Mari, visiting family in the big city and inexplicably attracted to Roberto\u2019s lack of charm, takes the direct route to piercing his carapace: \u201cI can tell that you are a man with integrity and suffering,\u201d she tells him, doe-like eyes radiating innocence and coquettishness in equal measure. To no avail.<\/p>\n

\"Ricardo<\/a>
Ricardo Darin and Ignacio Huang in Chinese Take-Out<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Drama literally falls at Roberto\u2019s feet when Jun tumbles from a passing taxi. Jun has experienced his own fair share of sadness and absurdity in his native China; singularly unprepared, he has travelled halfway across the world to find his uncle in Argentina. With no money, no Spanish and the (out of date) address tattooed inside his forearm his only lead, he needs an open-hearted person to help him along in his quixotic task. One is hard put to decide whom one ought to feel more sorry for given the inauspicious circumstances, helpless Jan or hope-less Roberto.<\/p>\n

\"Muriel<\/a>
Muriel Santa Ana and Ignacio Huang in Chinese Take-Out<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite its modest underpinnings, Chinese Take-Out<\/em> \u2013 the highest grossing non-US film in Argentina in 2011 \u2013 has an undeniable charm. Ricardo Darin \u2013 best known for playing the hustler Marcos in 2000\u2019s Nine Queens \u2013 brings a physical gusto to his role, animated facial tics and exaggerated physicality conveying a palpable comic irritation. Ignacio Huang plays Jun as a wide-eyed innocent, but with something held back in reserve. Cultural and language obstacles are a given; Mari\u2019s good hearted percipience may or may not be enough to pull them through the inevitable mishaps, but one can\u2019t but help rooting for the very odd couple thrown together in this theatre of the absurd.<\/p>\n

Chinese Take-Out<\/em> (2011, 93 min., Spanish\/Chinese with English and Hebrew subtitles)
\nWritten and directed by Sebastian Borenszstein<\/p>\n

Chinese Take-Out will be released in Israeli theatres Thursday, January 17, 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roberto is lugubrious, cantankerous, out of step with the world and quite happy with this state of affairs. His hardware store, in suburban Buenos Aires, is as much excuse for waging war with humanity as it is a means of making a living. He lives alone in a house that he has scarcely changed since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}