Starring: Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin and Park Hee-son
Directed by: Park Chan-wook
Rated: R
Running Time: 139 minutes
Neon
Our Score: 4 out of 5 Stars
Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) is living the good life, or at least the upper-middle-class representation of it. He has a roof over his head, his childhood home no less, a homemaker wife (Son Ye-jin), and two kids who have the freedom to explore their hobbies. His steady job at a paper company keeps everything humming. That’s why it stings when Man-su informs his family that the company has been bought out by Americans and he’s officially on the chopping block. But he’s determined. Determined to get another paper job. Determined to provide. Determined because, in his head, he’s the best at papermaking, almost like a South Korean Dwight Schrute.
A year later, that determination dissolves into humiliation. The family is pinching pennies. Hobbies are no longer affordable. And during an interview, Man-su is told bluntly and cruelly that he’s too old and too inferior to get back into the game. It’s here that Man-su decides to change tactics. The adaptation he chooses, however, involves murder.
What’s compelling is who Man-su decides needs to die for him to return to his former life. His choices reflect a broader working-class crisis: instead of blaming the systemic forces that push us down, we’re encouraged to blame each other, an eerie representation of our current climate where we second guess and distrust our neighbor, immigrant, or that slightly more valued coworker. “No Other Choice” is full of these digs at capitalism, and they land harder because they’re not delivered as sermons, but as survival logic.
Tonally, the film balances the bleakness with a surprising layer of absurd comedy. There’s a Looney Tunes quality to the murder attempts and the prior plotting. It’s inept, overcomplicated, and occasionally slapstick in a way that even Wile E. Coyote would diagnose as poor engineering. The misunderstandings and bursts of rage sometimes flirt with soap opera parody, but Park Chan-wook never lets the humor overwhelm the dread. It’s just enough to keep us breathing while Man-su makes things increasingly worse for himself.
Man-su lives by capitalism’s favorite rule: survival of the fittest. But in his mind, being “fit” means returning to the comfort he once reached. He craves the house, the status, the security, and the feeling that life finally makes sense. It’s not greed, exactly. He’s not looking to kill his way up the corporate ladder to become CEO. It’s the horror of losing something you were told you deserved, whether through indirect pressure, upbringing, societal standards, etc.
On the surface, “No Other Choice” feels predictable: the arc is clear, the anti-capitalist critique is worn openly, and the runtime lets you marinate in it a touch too long. But that roughness becomes sharper because of the comedy. Without the absurdity, the film’s obviousness would dull its knives. With it, the absurdity becomes the point. We’re looking in the mirror and wondering why we’ve allowed ourselves to reach this point.
Comparisons to “Parasite” are inevitable for American audiences, and while “No Other Choice” doesn’t reach those same highs, it distinguishes itself in what it finds tragic. “Parasite” is about clawing and scrounging upwards into the comfort zone, even if it’s fleeting and brief. “No Other Choice” is about what happens when you live and adapt to that comfort zone, only for a single economic decision to kick you back out. Where “Parasite” wastes no seconds, “No Other Choice” occasionally feels like it needs the runtime of a comedy. “No Other Choice” might have weasled its way into my favorite films of the year if it was shorter, punchier, meaner.
Even so, the film lingers. It’s funny, but it’s the kind of funny that gives the working-class viewer a pit in their stomach. It’s a pit that whispers, in a very real way, that absurd solutions begin with realistic scenarios. And that’s a feeling Americans, and apparently South Koreans, know all too well right now.