No Other Choice
- Ben Pivoz
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Park Chan-wook is a consistently fascinating filmmaker. Constantly reinventing himself, he has made several great films, all quite different from one another. That includes Oldboy, one of the best of the century. Now we can add his latest, No Other Choice (in Korean, with English subtitles), to the list. A clever, thoughtful, entertaining satire about a working-class man, laid off after 25 years of doing anything that was asked of him at a paper company, who will do anything to get a job with another paper company so he can keep up his family’s quality of life. There is a lot going on here; technological advances hurting factory workers, the invisibility of the working-class, pride leading to shame leading to desperation, etc. It is funny in a sadly recognizable way and contains some solid irony.
This is a good man, who truly loves his wife and two kids. He also is so identified with his job that losing it makes him feel like he no longer matters. They got rid of him because they had “no other choice.” That is the same reason he has to work at a paper factory and the same reason he will risk everything to do so. That hopeless determination drives No Other Choice (135 minutes, without the end credits), giving it purpose. Park Chan-wook tends to play in suspense. That isn’t really the case here. The tension doesn’t come from the action; it comes from internal drama. Even if he succeeds, who will he be then? This is a complex production that does a lot of the right things, from a director who is always challenging himself and his audience. This is a very good movie.
The paper factory Man-su works for has been sold to an American company who are cutting salaries in favor of automation. He fights against it, then gets laid off himself. Paper is all he knows, but it is also a dying industry. How can he get a decent job when there are so many qualified people and so few openings? The answer he comes up with is to eliminate the competition. Literally. Though he isn’t a violent man, he will do what he must.
Money is a massive excuse for desperation, both in the movies and in real life. People will go to extreme measures to get it and keep it. Man-su lives a comfortable life, with a job he is good at, a nice house and a loving family that enjoys the privileges of his hard work. When he is suddenly and unexpectedly jobless, he and his wife, Miri, figure they’ll be okay so long as he finds work in three months. He considers paper the only thing he can do, severely limiting his own options. When he still hasn’t been hired well after his target time has passed, his family needs to make sacrifices. When Miri mentions selling the house, Man-su loses any sense of boundaries. If he must hurt innocent people to keep what is his, so be it.
An intriguing aspect of No Other Choice is that Man-su isn’t good at killing. He efficiently finds his targets (the candidates he thinks are more qualified than him, as well as the guy who already has the job he wants) and tracks them. He then watches patiently for his opportunity. However, he is not cold-blooded. It is difficult for him to take that ultimate step. It shows humanity from someone who is at the whim of a system that has none. The brutality with which Man-su and his coworkers are terminated from their jobs is juxtaposed against the surprising sympathy he displays toward his potential victims. It is a cynical movie, but far from a heartless one.
That is a strength of Park Chan-wook. He puts his protagonists through a lot, yet he cares about them, even the ones who do terrible things. No Other Choice is based on the 1997 Donald Westlake novel “The Ax.” Though I have not read it, it is classified as horror, which this adaptation definitely is not. Otherwise, it sounds pretty faithful. Park Chan-wook gives us a man who does what he feels is necessary, but he isn’t happy about it. There is a sad guilt to his actions, like he is almost hoping he fails. This is not a man behaving badly. It is a man battling change and the future, being pitted against poor souls in the same position as him. It is funny, with the pitch-black humor coming because it is better to laugh than to cry.
4¼ out of 5
Cast:
Lee Byung-hun as Man-su
Son Yejin as Miri
Kim Woo Seung as Si-one
Choi So Yul as Ri-one
Directed by Park Chan-wook
Screenplay by Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar and Jahye Lee
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