No Other Choice opens with the image of a happy family. A thoughtful husband, a beautiful wife, lovely children. As he grills in the garden on a summer day, he has a moment of pure gratitude, hugging his family tightly. But suddenly, as the leaves begin to fall, we realize the season is changing. This picture will no longer remain the same. The image in the frame will fade, and Man-su will never be able to return to that moment.
The first signs of this shift appear at his workplace. Caught in the downward spiral of the paper industry, the company Man-su works for is hit hard, and he is laid off.
This dismissal triggers deep changes in Man-su. He applies for countless positions but fails in interviews. The sense of failure settles over him and his family like a nightmare. As his family begins to take precautions to survive the financial crisis, Man-su feels increasingly inadequate. This feeling eventually drives him to devise an unthinkable plan: a plan to commit murder.
Even if we trace Man-su’s tendency toward violence back to family roots, the ruthless nature of the capitalism seeping into his soul is also a crucial factor. In fact, the film’s core idea is summed up by the wife of another unemployed man: “It’s not that you lost your job that’s the problem—it’s how you deal with being unemployed.” At the heart of it all lies the dilemma of a fragile male ego that believes itself to be strong.
No Other Choice tells, with dark humor, the story of a man who enjoys tending trees in his greenhouse, yet falls into a spiral of violence driven by greed. In a world where everyone is crushed by the gears of capitalism and AI threatens the future, committing murder may seem like an option to make money, at least according to Park Chan-wook, who enjoys telling extremes.
No Other Choice is adapted from The Ax, a novel previously shot by one of my favorite directors, Costa-Gavras, under the same title. Since the film rights belonged to Gavras, Park Chan-wook and Gavras worked together on the early drafts of the script. What Park Chan-wook does differently, however, is a fresh tone: a sharp sense of humor, fairy-tale-like colors, and striking cinematography.