There’s no escaping the crushing weight of a world that tells you have ‘no other choice’—and that’s exactly the gut‑punch at the heart of Park Chan‑wook’s newest film.
But here's where it gets controversial: the movie turns that desperation into a darkly comic murder spree, forcing us to ask whether the line between survival and madness is really that thin.
Park Chan‑wook, the South Korean auteur whose name has become synonymous with stylish thrillers, has spent three decades delivering films that are now considered modern classics. From the tense border drama Joint Security Area to the iconic revenge saga Oldboy, from the sumptuous period piece The Handmaiden to the recent romance‑mystery Decision to Leave, his résumé reads like a masterclass in visual storytelling. Yet, despite this impressive body of work, the director has never been crowned with a major international award—a fact that makes the buzz around his latest project all the more intriguing.
The film in question is No Other Choice, a black‑comedy thriller that feels as urgent as a breaking news alert. It began life as a personal passion project more than twenty years ago, when Park first stumbled upon Donald Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax. The novel’s premise—an ordinary man driven to murder his way back into a shrinking job market—caught his imagination instantly. Park has said that the story’s blend of personal desperation and sweeping social commentary felt like a perfect canvas for his cinematic style.
Initially, the adaptation was pitched to Netflix as an English‑language thriller, with the idea of reaching a global streaming audience. However, a series of development snags—rights issues, script rewrites, and shifting market conditions—eventually forced the project back to its roots. The result is a Korean‑language feature starring two of the country’s most beloved screen icons: Lee Byung‑hun, who rose to worldwide fame as the charismatic antagonist in Squid Game, and Son Ye‑jin, often described as the nation’s sweetheart for her versatile performances across drama and romance.
Park has repeatedly explained that he clung to the script through the so‑called ‘development hell’ because he sensed that the film’s core idea was both absurd and universally resonant. He recalls telling friends from different generations and continents that they all found the premise instantly relatable. In his view, the year 2025—marked by soaring inflation, AI‑driven job displacement, and a pervasive sense of economic anxiety—provides the perfect cultural moment for No Other Choice to strike a chord with audiences around the globe.
The narrative follows Yoo Man‑su (Lee Byung‑hun), a devoted husband and father who suddenly finds himself unemployed after a lifetime at a paper mill is rendered obsolete by AI‑powered automation. The job market he once trusted now resembles a battlefield: endless interviews, humiliating rejections, and a flood of younger candidates with digital skills he lacks. His wife, Mi‑ri (Son Ye‑jin), tries to keep the family afloat by cutting back on expenses and embracing a pragmatic, minimalist lifestyle. Ironically, her steadying influence only deepens Man‑su’s sense of failure, pushing him toward a dark epiphany: the only way to secure his place is to eliminate his competitors—one by one.
Park makes it clear that Man‑su is no professional assassin. Instead, the director leans into his clumsiness, using a palette of baroque visual tricks and slap‑slap‑slap physical comedy reminiscent of Looney Tunes cartoons. The result is a film that is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying—a mordant satire that skewers the indignities of modern labor, the fragile ego of masculine identity, and the absurd moral gymnastics people perform to cling to a shred of dignity in a late‑capitalist, AI‑infested machine. In Park’s own words, the movie exposes the ‘bitter capitalist reality’ that compels ordinary people to point knives at each other.
The first U.S. trailer for No Other Choice dropped on Thursday (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-videos/no-other-choice-first-trailer-park-chan-wook-1236397456/), just a day before the film’s North American debut at the New York Film Festival. Neon, the specialty distributor known for championing bold indie titles, has scheduled a nationwide theatrical release for Christmas Day (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/park-chan-wook-no-other-choice-neon-1236300465/), positioning the movie as a potential awards‑season contender. Despite never having secured a major accolade—an omission many critics consider a glaring oversight given his work on Joint Security Area, Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave—industry pundits are already whispering that the Academy may finally have ‘no other choice’ but to nominate Park for his first Oscar.
The Hollywood Reporter recently sat down with Park to dig into the film’s origins, its thematic ambitions, and the creative choices that set it apart from his earlier work. Below is a distilled version of that conversation, re‑imagined for readers who want a deeper look.
Q: You spent more than two decades shepherding this adaptation. What about Westlake’s novel kept you glued to the project?
A: Park explains that the moment he opened The Ax, he felt the story was a perfect marriage of personal crisis and societal pressure. He saw an opportunity to explore a character’s inner turmoil while simultaneously commenting on the larger forces—automation, unemployment, and the erosion of the middle class—that shape that turmoil. He also sensed a hidden vein of black humor that could be amplified on screen. Additionally, he wanted to add a layer where the protagonist’s wife and son eventually come to understand the horrific deeds he commits, highlighting the paradox that the excuse ‘I’m doing this for my family’ often ends up destroying the very family it’s meant to protect. That paradox, he says, became the emotional engine that refused to let the project go.
Q: Without giving away spoilers, does the film’s conclusion leave the family morally ruined, or is it more about the transmission of generational trauma? Some viewers might walk away thinking Man‑su finally achieved his goal.
A: Park says the ambiguity is deliberate. He wants audiences to leave the theater wrestling with questions about the family’s future. He points to a pivotal line near the end: Mi‑ri declares, 'We’re not going to sell the house. We can’t—we just planted that apple tree.' That line can be read in two ways. On one hand, it’s a tender acknowledgment that the home represents years of shared labor and love, a symbol they’re unwilling to abandon. On the other hand, it could be a dark hint that a corpse lies buried beneath the tree—a literal reason they can’t sell the property because the new owners might uncover a dead body. Either reading suggests that the family is trapped by the consequences of Man‑su’s actions, and the film leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether the children are aware of the truth and how that knowledge shapes their lives.
Q: The movie feels darker than your previous work, yet the comedy is more pronounced. How did you strike that balance?
A: Park notes that he never abandoned his favorite ingredients—visual flair, tension, and a dash of irony—but he rearranged them for this particular recipe. He has always been drawn to dark humor, but with No Other Choice he amplified it intentionally. By pushing Man‑su’s incompetence to the extreme—think of a would‑be assassin fumbling with gloves, cords, and a gun—he creates a grotesque comedy that underscores the tragic absurdity of the character’s logic. The humor, he believes, makes the social critique sharper: when the audience laughs at the protagonist’s ridiculousness, they also feel the sting of the underlying commentary on how desperation can warp morality.
Q: Hitchcock is often mentioned as a major influence, and you’ve spoken about watching classic American movies on U.S. military broadcasts as a kid. But the slap‑stick moments in No Other Choice feel like a love letter to vintage cartoons. Did those cartoons leave a mark on your visual language?
A: Park laughs and admits that while critics love to point out his highbrow inspirations, his childhood was saturated with Saturday morning cartoons. He grew up devouring the exaggerated, mismatched visual humor of old Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry episodes. Those cartoons taught him that a single, absurd visual gag could convey a whole emotional beat, a lesson he applies in his own work. So yes, the influence is there—especially in the way Man‑su removes layer after layer of gloves before firing, a gag that feels straight out of a cartoon chase sequence.
Q: The film is packed with visually dense set pieces that sometimes demand multiple viewings to catch every nuance. One that stands out is the showdown in a living room where Man‑su points a gun at his first target while a classic Korean rock song blares from the stereo. Can you walk us through how that scene was conceived?
A: Park explains that the scene is a mash‑up of sound, movement, and symbolism. The victim, an audiophile named Beom‑mo, is listening to Cho Yong‑pil’s ‘Red Dragonfly’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGiU2kGgkZM), a nostalgic anthem that underscores both men’s sense of loss. The music is so loud that the characters can barely hear each other, creating a comedic tension where the audience hears the song more than the dialogue. Man‑su arrives wearing multiple layers of gloves—actually oven mitts that were previously shown hanging in his kitchen. He intended to muffle the gun’s click, but the blaring music renders the gloves unnecessary, so he theatrically peels them off one by one, each removal a visual beat that emphasizes his clumsiness. Underneath the gloves, he has bound the gun to his hand with vinyl cords, a visual metaphor for his determination to stay attached to his violent plan, even as it highlights his amateurish approach. The scene also reveals a shared hobby: while Man‑su tends to bonsai trees in his greenhouse, Beom‑mo is obsessed with vinyl records. This common ground makes the confrontation feel like a twisted mirror—Man‑su is essentially shouting at a version of himself, accusing the other man of ignoring his own wife’s advice about opening a vinyl café. The dialogue becomes a self‑directed rant, a way for Man‑su to externalize his own doubts about selling the family home and giving up his dream of gardening. The chaos escalates when Beom‑mo’s wife, who is having an affair, bursts in, adding another layer of absurdity as she both attacks Man‑su and echoes his accusations. The most hilariously dark moment comes when, amid the violence, Beom‑mo’s panic is triggered not by the gun but by his wife’s top slipping down—showing how even in life‑or‑death moments, petty embarrassments can dominate the mind.
Q: After all the darkness and satire, do you truly think ordinary people have any ‘other choice’ when faced with relentless technological change and a capitalist system that feels like a meat grinder?
A: Park lets out a heavy sigh and admits that the current climate is bleak. The rapid pace of AI, the looming threat of climate catastrophe, and the widening wealth gap make it feel like humanity is on the brink of unprecedented crises. Yet he refuses to declare defeat. He says that while the odds are daunting, the human capacity for resilience and ingenuity should not be dismissed. Even if we stumble, we must cling to the belief that progress is possible, that collective action can reshape the narrative, and that surrendering to despair would be the greatest mistake.
And now, a question for you, the reader: Some critics argue that the film glorifies violence as a solution to economic anxiety—do you think that’s a fair reading, or is the satire simply holding up a distorted mirror to our own desperation? Also, do you feel Park Chan‑wook finally deserves his first Oscar, or is the industry still overlooking his genius? Share your thoughts in the comments—let’s keep the conversation going.
