Chinese Takeaway is a 2011 comedy film from Argentina. It uses a great deal of Black Comedy and Kafka Komedy to advance the plot.
Roberto is a Falkland War veteran and a hardware store owner who is obsessed with cleanliness and order. He begins the story by counting the contents of a box of 350 screws. He complains to the supplier that they only sent him 349 screws. He goes about his daily life as a hardware store owner, and stops to eat lunch.
Then, he meets Jun.
Jun is a Chinese man who has been thrown out of a taxi. He runs up to Roberto to plead for help...in Chinese. Roberto only understands Spanish, so this proves a problem. However, he helps Jun, giving him his food and giving him a ride home, wherever that is. But Jun vomits in the car, prompting Roberto to oust him from the car.
But guilt convinces him to go back and pick him up once it starts raining.
Such begins a comedy of errors with many surprising Plot Twists, laughs, and even dramatic moments.
Tropes in Chinese Takeaway:
- Based on a True Story: the whole "cow falling from the sky and killing someone" is based on an actual event, although the cow was Russian and the people it fell on were the crew of a Japanese fishing boat
- Black Comedy: The cow and the barber, amongst other things.
- Dark and Troubled Past: both Jun and Roberto
- Dogged Nice Guy: gender-flipped with Mari, persistent in her affections for Roberto despite him showing little to no interest in her
- Hypocritical Humor: After helping Jun, a man who was thrown out of a car, Roberto throws him out of his car for vomiting.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Roberto is depicted as being a fundamentally nice guy, just with little to no patience for his fellow man
- Kafka Komedy: It's rare that Roberto can find an interpreter, and Jun's uncle is never his uncle...
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Mari is a somewhat low-intensity version of this, interested in the significantly more boring Roberto and trying to get him to open up and be less dour
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Roberto.
- War Is Hell: Roberto fought in the Falkland War. [[Deconstruction This is what caused him to develop obsessive compulsive tendencies.
