Smart choices made for No Other Choice

Its status as comedy coming from satire rather than “ha ha funny,” No Other Choice gleefully rips apart social norms. Influential to the makers of works like Bugonia and Parasite, legendary Korean director Park Chan-Wook takes a similar approach to those films by exploring how the rigid rules and behaviors of leaders create bad behavior from the general public. Not a new idea, given that Park and co-screenwriter Woo Seung-mi adapt from a 1997 novel called The Ax by Donald Westlake. Despite the story’s age, its themes feel current when a large corporation fires most of its employees, leading to one man’s dire methods for finding another job. Managers of course insist they had “no other choice.”  Fired employee Man-su makes the same claim as he embarks on eliminating competition for what jobs remain. As Man-su, actor Lee Byung-hun walks the thin line between repulsing audiences or keeping them on his side. Recognizable from The Squid Game series, the actor’s manic charm elicits some level of understanding for his deeds, helped by a strong supporting cast stepping in with a variety of emotions and reactions—many of them surprising.  Through it all, director Park displays a sure eye for cinematic storytelling, from a spectacular house to locations he uses in Korea’s Busan area to the detail of faces in close-up angles. Vivid colors heighten the sense of outrageous action as No Other Choice heads to its ironic finale. Given that the story already inspired another movie, presenting the movie in a fresh manner means Park faced many choices. He made the right ones.