NO OTHER CHOICE
(Original Title: Eo-jjeol su-ga eop-da)
South Korea (2025) 139 mins.
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Directors/writers: Park Chan-wook
Cast: Lee Byung-hun (Yoo Man-su), Son Ye-jin (Lee Mi-ri)
Screening 10 March 2027 at Swindon Arts Centre
Synopsis
Middle-aged man (happily married, two children and dog, happy life, fine home), has spent his entire working life in the paper-making industry which he loves is, alongside others, made redundant. The film is about the desperate and criminal lengths to which he goes to become re-employed, largely by eliminating rivals. Very dark humour, at times somewhat baffling. Whilst his actions cannot be applauded, it is possible to empathise with hm on the reasons.
Reviews
“There is something so rewarding about going to a movie and giving yourself over to a master like Park Chan-wook, someone whom you trust through all the twists and turns of a film as tonally complex as “No Other Choice.”
It’s so easy to see all of the places where this unique gem could have gone wrong, and so satisfying to see it only make good choices from beginning to end.”
“Park Chan-wook’s new film brings his usual effortlessly fluent, steely confidence and a type of storytelling momentum that can accommodate all kinds of digressions, set-pieces and the occasional trance-like submission to mysterious visions. There are sub-plots of family disarray, which loom out of the screen quite as importantly as the bizarre homicide campaign.
And throughout it all, a deadpan note of knockabout black comedy is never entirely absent. What on earth does it all mean?”
Film Facts
- Based on The Ax, a USA novela, but now set in Korea
- World premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival
- Multiple award nominations at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards