Argentina’s national treasure, Ricardo Darín, is best known for his intense dramatic performances in films such as Nine Queens, The Aura, and the Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes, but his brilliant comic timing in this instant classic helped make Chinese Take-Away the biggest home-grown box office success of 2011 in Argentina. Darín plays Roberto, a gruff, anti-social loner who lords over his tiny hardware shop in Buenos Aires with a meticulous sense of control and routine, barely allowing for the slightest of customer foibles. After a chance encounter with Jun, a Chinese man who has arrived in Argentina looking for his only living relative, Roberto takes him in. Their unusual cohabitation helps Roberto bring an end to his loneliness, but not without revealing to the impassive Jun that destiny’s intersections are many and can even explain the film ´s surreal opening sequence: a brindled cow falling from the sky.

Sebastián Borensztein / 98 min / 2012 / Comedy / Spanish with English subtitles / Argentina, Spain