El Chino

Very good movie. Intense from the beginning to the end. Crafted with few resources, as were done the movies in the good times of the Nouvelle Vague. Few resources in terms of few actors, few places where the scenes where recorded, no special effects, stunts, wreckage etc, and at the same time, an outstanding existential weight. Existential weight in the sens that each minute in the film is meaningful and cannot be lost. Ricardo Darin is again a great actor. Muriel Santa Ana inspires beauty and sensuality being very simple all the time. Ignacio Huang is dramatic in spite that no one understand what he says. In short, a film which suggests that it is good to plan some place for wisdom in our lives.

Usually telling the end of a film is considered a spoiler. In the case of Argentinian director Sebastián Borensztein, 'Chinese Take-Out' ('Un cuento cino' in the Spanish version) it would be a spoiler to tell how it begins. I actually watched the usual late comers to the cinema hall and wondered whether the film experience is really complete for those folks who entered even only two minutes late after the start of the projection. So, I won't make the mistake of revealing the start of this quite charming feel-good film, I will just say it's quite relevant.

The film tells the story of a grumpy mid-aged owner of a hardware shop in Argentina named Roberto who lives alone, refusing almost any relation with other human beings excepting his suppliers and customers (well, even with these ones only to the point where they do not walk on his toes). He is a good and decent man, and a very bad communicator at the same time. The last thing he needs in life is the appearance of a young Chinese man, Jun, frightened and disoriented, who looks for his uncle in the search for somebody to support him in finding a new way in a new country and who has no-one to rely on but Roberto whom he met accidentally. None of them speaks any word in the language of the other, and each hides traumas from the bast that justify their own barriers in communication. The whole movie is about finding ways to communicate and building a friendship that will help both in overcoming the hurdles of life.

Films about overcoming cultural gaps doubled by barriers of language and making human communication possible despite of them have been made in the past, the one I happen to remember is the Israeli 'Noodle', which was telling the story of a stewardess who finds herself taking care of an abandoned Chinese kid. What makes the story different in 'Un quento cino' are the background stories of the two heroes and the fact that Ricardo Darin and Ignacio Huang are right on spot for the two leading roles. One of the nice ideas of the film is that Jun (Huang) does not really speak one word of Spanish during the whole film, he speaks Chinese, but no translation is available. The language gap is more than a emotional trick or a comic pretext in this film. It is the very glue upon which the relationship and eventually the friendship between the two characters is based upon. Although it is aimed eventually to be a feel-good movie (and succeeds to be so) 'Un quento cino' avoids falling into cheap melodrama because of the discrete humor built upon the day-to-day situations, also based on the fact that in the absence of words the characters need to use gestures which to some extent remind the pantomime style of the early cinema comedies. A discrete and pleasant film.

I need to say that Argentine cinema is surprising me more and more at each movie I watch. They are decades ahead of us here in Brazil. Not that we don't ever produce good works.

A rich cast and a good script makes Un cuento chino a excellent option to amuse you at any time, being you alone and sad or laughing with friends.

Trust me, the jokes and the faces are priceless. Ricardo Darín is at his best form, doing what he is best of. His character, Roberto, is an slang disturbed man. He owns a ironware store where he always counts hot many bolts are in the box, so he is not cheated. He turn off the lights every day at 23 pm, etc. One day he is sitting there near the airport, watching the planes takin' off, drinking his beer when this china is thrown off a moving cab. Roberto decide to help the poor boy and, since then, their lives will suffer some changes.

In Buenos Aires, the bitter and methodic Roberto (Ricardo Darín) is a lonely man and the owner of a hardware store. Roberto collects bizarre worldwide news in an album as a hobby and his acquaintance Mari (Muriel Santa Ana) has an unrequited love for him, but Roberto is always evasive.

One day, Roberto sees a Chinese named Jun (Ignacio Huang) being expelled from a taxi while he is watching the landing of airplanes in the airport and he helps the man to stand up. Jun does not speak Spanish and shows a tattoo with an address on his arm. Roberto heads to the spot with Jun and discover that the place belonged to Jun's uncle that sold it three and half years ago. Roberto goes with Jun to the police station, to the China's embassy and to a Chinese neighborhood to seek out his uncle but it is a fruitless search. Roberto lodges Jun in his house and after a series of incidents, he finds a delivery boy that speaks Cantonese to translate Jun and he learns the dramatic story of the life of his guest.

"Un Cuento Chino" is a funny and dramatic film, with a refreshing story and excellent screenplay, direction and performances. Ricardo Darín is one of the best (if not the best) Argentinean actors these days; Ignacio Huang is great in the role of a Chinese that cannot speak Spanish and Muriel Santa Ana is very sweet with her beautiful smile. This film is another proof that for making a great film, budget is one of the least components. Story, screenplay, direction and performances are the most important.

The apparently absurd and bizarre idea of a cow falling from the sky on a boat is true and has happened in 1997 in the Sea of Japan, when a Russian cargo airplane with problems released a cow from a high altitude that hit a Japanese fishing boat that sank. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Um Conto Chinês" ("A Chinese Tale")

I really enjoyed this Argentinian comedy-drama movie about a solitary man that aids an indigent Chinese man that arrives in his country and speaks no word of Spanish! It's quite a beautiful and touching story mostly because of the way it develops and helps both men finding their way to happiness. It's told in the beginning that this story is based on true events. If so, it's even better and interesting.

Roberto (played by Ricardo Darín) is a solitary man that lives in a poor house and owns a small shop. He's very methodic and has some strange habits and hobbies. For instance, he shuts down the light before sleep everyday on 23pm, o'clock, on the precise second (!) and collects bizarre and absurd true stories he cuts from newspapers (I also appreciated the way those stories are told in the film: Roberto imagines the story as he was there and assumes the character of that little story, like Amélie Poulain in AMÉLIE ). But his live is not easy. He's afraid to release his feelings and emotions and he's very closed and linked to the past. At the same time he's very honest, has a strong personality and is a person with great moral values. Precisely what will make him rescue Juan, the lost Chinese man (played by Ignacio Huang) and help him against everything, even other Chinese people, who are unwilling to aid Juan… (by the way it's hilarious the scene when they go to a Chinese neighborhood in Buenos Aires and when Juan starts speaking in Chinese, to his compatriot, the other man says in Spanish – "I don't understand him!! He's talking in Cantonese and I speak Mandarin! It's a different language!" AHAH! Of course he's right but the situation is hilarious and priceless!). So, it's for this man, with such noble character, that Mari (Muriel Santa Ana), a friend and neighbor of Roberto, will fall in love. But he seems to not care, he seems to be afraid of her… or maybe he's just afraid of himself… However, helping Juan Roberto will help himself too as we will see in the end of the film. I don't use to appreciate beautiful and happy endings but here I did! I really enjoyed the way this film ended, especially because what it meant to Roberto and to the way his life turned around!

This film is delicious by its humor, its drama and also because of all those little circumstances portrayed, that can really happen to every one of us and change our lives!