Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice is a darkly comic and visually stunning thriller about a laid-off paper factory worker whose desperate fight to preserve his identity spirals into absurd violence and moral collapse. By far my favorite film at NYFF 2025, it cements the South Korean film industry as a new behemoth not only in commercial success, but critical as well.
From its opening barbecue in the garden to its final, relatively unconventional conclusion, No Other Choice is fiercely ambitious, and completely successful in its intent. Park Chan-wook crafts a pitch-black fairy tale of economic desperation, identity, and moral collapse. There is never a moment that shocks purely for shock’s sake; each scene is carefully lain and plays into a view of how a man’s dignity, his relationships, and even his sense of self can be eroded by structural forces. In being able to combine metaphor with thrill and comedy masterfully, the film stands as one of Park’s most humane and visually inventive works to date. It is by far my favorite film from this year’s NYFF, and dare I say in comparison to other blockbuster Korean films (cough cough, Parasite), it has taken the top spot for me.
At the center of the film’s swirling plot is Man-su, played by Lee Byung-hun, a paper industry specialist who has long inhabited a comfortable but narrow suburban middle-class life. He, his wife Mi-ri, (in a stellar performance by Son Ye-jin), and his two children find that their home and their two beloved dogs are torn away when his longtime employer makes sweeping layoffs. Scenes like this would be depressing, but the quips keep the mood light; the opening gesture of receiving a box of eels, a celebratory custom in Korea, soon garners laughs when Man-su discovers only employees on the chopping block received it. As the world around him unravels, Man-su refuses to abandon his sense of self as a “paper man,” and rather than reinventing himself as most would do, he embarks on an audacious campaign to kill his competition. The sheer absurdity of the idea that out of all the things he could do to secure a job, he chooses to run around and murder other applicants to a singular company shows how willing Park Chan-wook is to lean into both absurdity and moral horror in equal measure.
Technically, No Other Choice is brilliant as well. Park—collaborating on the script with Don McKellar and Lee Kyoung-mi, among others—brilliantly sets up transitions, unique camera placements, match-cuts, and visual motifs. Every stylistic choice flows with intention and adds to the storytelling. The camera often floats with an eerie composure, giving space for the absurdity and violence to settle. The production design and framing take the viewer on a ride that they can manage to only just hold on to: my personal favorite shot is when Man-su must forcibly drink a cocktail bomb, or a shot within a beer. Ridden with anxiety, he nervously chugs and we feel his tension first hand as the camera is placed directly inside the cup. We see Man-su’s mouth come closer to reluctantly drink, and we hear the clink of the shot glass as it slides down, and it feels like I just drank the concoction myself. The entire scene had me so engrossed, it almost read like the director was flexing his abilities.
What makes No Other Choice more than simply a satire or thriller is how it treats questions of identity, masculinity, and agency. Man-su’s refusal to consider a different field besides paper is not just stubbornness—it’s the culmination of a lifetime fixed to a singular social role. The film mirrors his collapse in external violence with internal fracture; he gets progressively manic as the film progresses. However, he does manage to keep his cool, and it is revealed that he does indeed have a plan. This was another genius move by the director: often times, Man-su is seen frantically doing things that are not given explanation, and it seems like he has finally cracked and that we will finally see him succumb to his crimes and fringed mental state. However, it is then eventually revealed that what I initially assumed was a plan going awry was actually a plan going perfectly as orchestrated, such as *that* drink scene at the mansion. It is a clever bit of foreshadowing and subversion that kept me guessing and thoroughly entertained.
Though the film is constantly critiquing some aspect of society, it is never cold. There is a deep empathy here—for people who fear losing more than money, who fear losing their place, their respect, their self-image. The final moments, which provide a resolution, but ask at what cost, and feel equally as depressing as not having a job at all, feel honest: this is not a redemption story, but a story of a winner amongst relative losers. The film urges us to see how systems make monsters—not to forgive, but to understand how they emerge. It made me contemplate my own morals and limits; what would I do in this situation? Could I ever kill if it came to it? These are uncomfortable questions that pose uncomfortable answers.
No Other Choice is Park Chan-wook at full roar: a satirical masterpiece, and a triumph. It is violent but not numbing, absurd but never shallow, and morally provocative without sacrificing entertainment. Park has not simply adapted Westlake’s novel “The Ax”—he has reimagined it through his own cinematic lens, producing a film that is acutely tuned to our times, and in my opinion, much better. If there is one “choice” left for cinema’s success today, it is this kind of audacious, uncompromising storytelling, and No Other Choice delivers it in spades.
