FILM REVIEW
NO OTHER CHOICE
Rated R
139 Minutes
Wide Release January 9th
No Other Choice is an inspired piece of cinematic poetry. On the surface, you will think this is simply a story of a man who loses his job of some 25 years, as you are drawn into this heartbreaking and familiar tale. Soon, you find that it cuts through ingrained concepts to reveal the greater meaning of our everyday lives. It tears open the relationships we think we know with the people who surround us and gets inside them and inside us. It explores the bond we have, or don’t have, with the earth and its landscapes that color the backdrops of our lives. It’s a painting, a tapestry, an eye-opener of a story, a hilarious and truthful statement on human nature.
The story is based on the 1997 novel The Ax by American author Donald Westlake. The main character is named “Man-su” in this movie. Man-su has a middle management job at a large paper factory where he was once honored as “Pulp Man of the Year.” His job carries not only his income that supports his family – it’s also his identity. Without warning, he is laid off. Psychologically heavy wheels start turning in his head as he tries to come to grips with this sudden gaping hole in his life and excruciating threat to his pride.
The dialogue is in Korean, but it’s easy to follow as communication in this film is based more on looks and actions, and everything that is said is concise and bears meaningful weight. The sets mirror real life in detail, as the houses and surroundings don’t seem staged. They’re a little messy – and it rains a lot.
You think you’re watching a nice, uncomplicated movie about a middle-class Korean family with whom you can easily relate. And then, ever so gradually, the style of the film starts to change. You will be gently jolted out of your reverie and, in the process, perhaps watch your own world wrenched open and laid bare. It’s as if the characters are turned inside out, and you see them do what they actually want to do, like the little thought balloons that come out of characters’ heads in the comics. Even the family’s dogs have a place in this allegory. The two loving, joyful Golden Retrievers are a symbol of the family’s warm emotional ties, and at a crucial point in the movie, they are sent away, gone from the picture. The family needs them back more than they realize. (Kudos to the great job done by the dog wrangler here!)
Director Park Chan-Wook was born in Seoul, Korea. His mother is a poet and his father an architect. As a child, he watched foreign films on his family’s black-and-white TV. He didn’t understand the words, so he grasped the story through sound and images. Park studied philosophy in college and originally wanted to become a painter, which is evident in the extraordinary visual impact of every scene in his films, but he began his career as a film critic. Park’s early films in the 1990’s were not well-received, but he never gave up and kept directing films and television shows.
Three of his films in the early 2000’s focus on vengeance. In 2022, he won the Best Director award at Cannes for Decision to Leave, and in 2024, he directed the critically acclaimed mini-series, The Sympathizer, for Netflix, starring Robert Downey Jr. One of our clients, Tien Pham, was cast on that show and shot in LA and Vietnam over many months. Pham reported that Park was an imaginative and kind director. Framing, lighting, and camera work are all very important to Park, and no small part of the screen is left as an afterthought. He likes scripts that don’t try to explain everything. Most of his team of filmmakers have worked with him multiple times, and one of his biggest fans is Quentin Tarantino, who has seen all his films.
This is an uplifting story, an ironic comedy, and on a deeper, darker level, a gruesome horror story of nefarious psychotic behavior. The cast, all highly skilled, well-known Korean actors, are perfectly in tune with the comic/dramatic shift as the allegorical alternate reality takes over. The two stars, Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin, are celebrated Korean stars, Lee having worked with Park before.
As in an epic poem, Park is illustrating our feelings with dramatic images, which in themselves are comedic and horrific at the same time. Nature and our tendency to underestimate and belittle it plays a pivotal role in the movie, as does an examination of our relationships with each other as humans. You will probably find personal meaning in No Other Choice, and you will no doubt discover more insight if you see it more than once. Above all, look at it with your sense of humor intact. Park Chan-Wook is one of the great filmmakers of our time who truly understands how to use cinema to create art.
No Other Choice has been nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and should be nominated for at least one Oscar. The movie has my vote as one of the best I’ve seen.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
