No Other Choice

Park Chan-wook’s follow-up to his highly acclaimed Decision to Leave in 2022 and The Handmaiden in 2016 has now crafted the film of his career with No Other Choice. This film furthers the notion that Park Chan-wook is a modern-day masterful filmmaker. It’s a film that holds many tonal shifts, but like most successful Korean films, it offers great thought and artistry, and it’s a work of relevance.

The film starts off with some sharp satire of family living it up in their home with barbeque, good eats, and joy. They live in the suburbs outside Busan, South Korea, and it’s a smaller coastal town with woods, suburbs, and homes spaced out. All of this comes crashing to an end after we meet Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), the father and husband who ends up losing his job at the paper factory after American businessmen arrive and buy out the factory, causing severe downsizing. Man-su is more than just a factory worker; he is a paper industry expert and has won a prestigious award before as well.

This becomes a blow, as the job was well paid, and Man-su and his wife, Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin) end up making a lot of cuts to their personal costs that affect their teenage son, Si-One, and their young daughter, Ri-one, an antisocial cello player. They end up canceling Netflix, buying struggle meals with soup that has no meat, and getting rid of their two dogs to MI-ri’s parents to reduce costs. Man-su is determined to find a job in papermaking, but months go by, and he finds himself working at a low-paying retail job as he awaits the next call from a paper company. Meanwhile, Ri-one’s teacher demands that she take advanced classes and get a new expensive cello. Both Manu-Su and Mi-ri can’t keep up with the mortgage payments, and they consider selling the home to the parents of Si-one’s best friend, Geeon-ho. Mi-ri ends up taking a second job as a dental assistant to a dashing, distant male, Jin-ho (Yoo Yeon-seok), who is clearly attracted to Mi-ri. Man-su ends up having a massive toothache that he ignores throughout the film.

Courtesy Neon

Man-su ends up getting an interview with Paper Moon, and the interview doesn’t go well, as he is pressed by a board of managers. One of the managers of Paper Moon is Seon-chu, who disrespects him in the interview. Man-Su ends up following him home, and he nearly kills Seon-chul using a potted plant, but he doesn’t carry through with it. Man-Su ends up getting ahold of his competitors and job applications. Man-su identifies there are two of the batch that exceed his. Man-su ends up retrieving his father’s Vietnam War gun and decides to kill his competitors Choi Seon-chul (Park Hee-soon), Goo Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min), and Ko Si-jo (Cha Seung-won).

Man-su begins his premeditative murder plots by spying on unemployed drunkard Beom-mo, who is very distraught and depressed by the job. Man-Su ends up following Beom-mo and his dissatisfied wife, A-Ra (Yeom Hye-ran), and the murder goes awry once Man-Su gets bitten by a snake and A-Ra spits the poison out of his leg. From the spying, Man-su also knows that A-Ra is having an affair with one of her fellow co-stars as she acts in a local theater company. This leads to a second attempt in a hilarious scene of Man-Su trying to shoot Beom-mo as he listens to Red Pepper Dragonfly by Cho Vong Pil. It’s a brilliant sequence, and one of Park Chanwook’s greatly staged sequences he has ever mounted. This is followed up by another great moment of Man-Su rushing to a costume dance party where he is disheartened to see Mi-ri dancing in her Pocahontas costume with Jin-ho.

As you can read, this is a densely plotted film. The film unravels with sheer brilliance that is loaded with deep themes about capitalism, automation, family, identity, and self-worth. It’s a Korean adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s The Ax, and it’s a blazing adaptation filled with dark humor, rich satire, and Hitchcockian suspense. Most striking here is Chan-wook’s direction and his innovative shots that are brought to pure perfection by cinematographer Kim Woo-hyung. The most astonishing shot is a sequence involving Seon-chul drinking together at their homes, and Chanwook frames some brilliant insert shots going underneath a beer glass that is unlike anything I have ever seen. It’s another astounding sequence out of so many other moments that are undeniably thrilling from beginning to end.

Courtesy Neon

Desperation is indeed a major theme of No Other Choice, but it dives deep into middle-class anxiety and survival. Aside from the abnormal malice, Man-Su is a compelling character and a caring family man. You see the cruelty of the outside corporate world pulling out the primitive human instincts that are hardwired in us for survival. Things happen in an innate way. Chanwook’s title is also part of thinking, and it’s muttered a few times throughout the film. The wealthy CEOs behind the downsizing will always put profits first over people, and with the threat of automation and AI, who knows what is in store for the job force and humanity as this evolves? This film hits home, especially to anyone in the current workforce who sees their labor base being disseminated, even when there are record profits. For a Chan-wook film, it offers all the gonzo storytelling, but it offers so much sophistication with the audacity—it also offers that dark humor and zaniness that gives Chan-wook such a trademark—and it’s all very accomplished, a brilliant suspense thriller and a remarkable piece of cinema.

NO OTHER CHOICE OPENS ON DECEMBER 25th in limited theaters. It opens in Ann Arbor on January 15th,