Desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures in Park Chan-wook’s pitch black satire.
“Losing your job isn’t the problem! The problem is how you deal with it!”
Long-term unemployment is hitting an all-time high in South Korea. It’s a worrying trend, and one we’ve seen a fair amount of in media in recent years. Squid Game satirised the exploitation of workers in an economy that rewarded ruthlessness and losing one’s humanity. That is, before it lost all of that and was just another, much worse Kaiji knockoff. Another film about Korea’s lower-income households struggling to find work, Parasite, was one of the biggest films of the year when it came out, and even made massive waves abroad thanks to its universal subject matter. No Other Choice, Park Chan-wook’s latest film looks to fit neatly alongside it.
This time, our toiling protagonist is Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), a manager at a paper factory, with 25 years under his belt and a 2019 Pulp Man award. His life is going well, with a loving wife, two children and a house, but things take an immediate downward turn when his company is acquired by an American firm, who promptly fire half the staff.
Over a year later, he’s barely making ends meet and the family has had to sell their things to get by, with his wife Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin) returning to work as a dental hyngeist. There are fewer and fewer opprtuntiies in his field, and desperate, he comes up with a scheme. He puts out a fake ad for a paper company looking for managers, and plans to kill the competition, before taking out the head of another paper company in order to take his job, safe there will be no one better than him taking the role.
Satire has always been at the heart of Korean cinema, and nowhere is it better showcased than in No Other Choice. Park Chan-wook deftly captures the desperation that many people face when made redundant. It’s something that anyone who’s been through it will relate to, and no doubt some of us have even wanted to concoct the sort of scheme that Man-su does here. He blends it all with comedy – otherwise this risks being a bit too real, and comes up with a film that rings very true, even during some of the more out-there moments.
It’s sold in part thanks to its stellar cast. Lee Byung-Hun is on point, as he always is, playing a character that is at the end of his rope, and desperate to try anything. People who only know him from his role in Squid Game will be surprised at his comedy chops, though now that I think about it, I don’t know if I’ve seen him in a funny role before either.
The supporting cast is a wonderful collection of sleazebag hiring managers, sad sack unemployed and an excellent turn by Son Ye-jin whose highly supportive wife character is given arguably more depth than Man-su. In a film loaded with interesting characters, she stands out as the loyal, down-to-earth voice of reason the audience and Man-su desperately needs.
If I have a gripe about it, it’s that it takes just way too long to find its rhythm. the beginning of the film is loaded with stylistic filmmaking that takes a second to adjust into but it also feels necessary to get out the film’s central thesis. The soulless, faceless and demoralising world of the job hunt is given the heft it need, as Man-su’s soul is slowly stripped.
Because there is really just one thing that the film wants to say: if you want to survive in a changing job market, you have to adjust – and adjusting usually means losing yourself to the machine. Often, quite literally.
Verdict: The film will speak strongest to those who have been in that position, but Park Chan-wook’s sly comedy shows to everyone watching how dire the job market can truly be.
Overall entertainment: 8/10
Violence: 4/10
Sex: 2/10
Satire: 7/10
Head tapping: I had no idea that was a real thing
Glare: Interviewers have got to start closing the blinds
Children: Are we going to talk about the crazy naming scheme between them and the dogs?
Pratfalls: 10/10
No Other Choice (2025)
Also known as: 어쩔수가없다 It Cannot be Helped
Korean
Director: Park Chan-wook
Writers: Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, Lee Ja-hye, Donald Westlake (novel)
CAST
Lee Byung-hun – Yoo Man-su
Son Ye-jin – Lee Mi-ri
Park Hee-soon – Choi Seon-chul
Lee Sung-min – Goo Beom-mo
Yeom Hye-ran – Lee A-ra
Cha Seung-won – Ko Si-jo
Yoo Yeon-seok – Oh Jin-ho
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