Film Review: No Other Choice (어쩔수가없다) 選擇有罪 (2025) - South Korea
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 9/10
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
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A Savage, Elegant Descent into Capitalist Madness - Park Chan-wook, that master architect of moral vertigo and visual splendor, returns with “No Other Choice" (어쩔수가없다), a film that doesn't just hold a mirror to our desperate, algorithm-haunted times – it smashes the mirror and uses the shards to perform exquisitely precise surgery on the rotting heart of late capitalism. Based on Donald E. Westlake's “The Ax”, this isn't merely an adaptation; it's a cultural transposition, a jet-black, quintessentially Korean scream into the void of the modern workforce, rendered with such savage wit and aesthetic control it leaves you breathless, laughing, and deeply, deeply unsettled.
The premise is deceptively simple, horrifyingly logical: Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun, delivering a performance of staggering, hollowed-out brilliance), a dedicated paper plant manager, finds himself abruptly downsized. Faced with the unthinkable erosion of his upper-middle-class life – the meticulously curated home, the societal standing, the fragile masculinity of the provider – Man-su doesn't just despair. He calculates. His solution? To methodically eliminate the seven more qualified candidates vying for the one job he covets. What begins as a darkly comic ballet of ineptitude – the bumbling would-be assassin wrestling with morality and logistics – curdles, under Park's unflinching gaze, into something far more chilling: a procedural grind of indifference. Each step down this path isn't a plunge, but a quiet, terrifying normalization.
Park Chan-wook remains arguably the most elegant filmmaker alive. His signature mise-en-scène here is a maximalist nightmare of unsettling beauty. The Man-su household, realized with meticulous, almost suffocating production design, becomes a character itself – a pristine cage of aspirational living, bathed in lush, menacing forest greens that seem to whisper of decay beneath the surface. Every frame is composed with the precision of a Dutch Master painting a crime scene. The camera doesn't just observe; it dissects, gliding with unnerving calm through Man-su’s escalating atrocities. This isn't gratuitous style; it's the visual manifestation of a mind systematically compartmentalizing horror.
Lee Byung-hun is nothing short of revelatory. He sheds movie-star glamour to embody Man-su’s depressed frustration with terrifying authenticity. We see the weary salaryman, the panicked father, the humiliated husband, and then, chillingly, the emergence of the coldly efficient strategist. It’s a performance built on minute calculations – a flicker of doubt extinguished by steely resolve, a tremor of guilt smoothed into pragmatic calm. Alongside him, Son Ye-jin as his wife, Miri, is a bracingly unpredictable force. She’s no mere victim or nag; she’s an emotional anchor gradually becoming untethered, evolving into a compelling moral wild card whose proximity to Man-su’s darkness adds layers of profound unease.
Comparisons to "Parasite" are inevitable, but “No Other Choice" operates at a colder temperature. Park is less interested in explosive class rage than in the methodical, soul-corroding erosion of moral boundaries required to survive, or rather, to win, in a system that views humans as expendable cogs. The film is a bleak, brilliant commentary on the dehumanizing specters of AI and automation, culminating in a final act of such delightfully acidic irony it feels like a twist of the knife. Man-su’s pyrrhic victory – securing the job only to find himself training the very algorithmic system destined to render him obsolete – isn't just a plot point; it's the perfect, devastating punchline to the sick joke the film has been telling all along.
“No Other Choice" is an irresistible, lacerating masterpiece. It’s a savage dark comedy, a jet-black thriller of the highest order, and a profound social critique wrapped in a package of unparalleled visual artistry. Park Chan-wook confirms his place among the cinematic giants, wielding his camera like an elegant blade to expose the brutal absurdity of our existence. It’s sick, it’s dazzling, and it’s unquestionably one of the most essential films of the year. (Neo, 2026)
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