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![](\"https:\/\/cdn.craft.cloud\/26ed9c78-feb7-4ee6-8ddf-262fd7bafb2d\/assets\/tco\/images\/No-Other-Choice.jpg\")
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In Donald Westlake\u2019s 1997<\/span> horror novel \u200b\u2018<\/span>The Ax\u2019, a\u00a0recently laid-off manager at a\u00a0paper company decides to thin out the competition in the job pool by tracking down and taking out his potential competitors as he vies for a\u00a0new job. Westlake\u2019s book was written amid the corporate redundancies of 90<\/span>s America; it struck a\u00a0chord with Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, who has been slowly working out his version of the story ever since. It arrives now \u2013 as did Westlake\u2019s novel \u2013 into a\u00a0society where the value of human labour has been decreed minimal, named for the refrain of almost every character in the film moments before they do something cruel and self-serving. <\/span>No Other Choice <\/span><\/i>sees Director Park at his most biting and brutal, but not without emotion. As bloodthirsty and impish as this work is, there\u2019s more to it than just rage against the machine.<\/span><\/p>\n Transporting the story to his native South Korea, Park casts Lee Byung-hun as family man You Man-su, who lives in a\u00a0gorgeous home with his wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) their children Si-One and Ri-One, and two beautiful Golden Retrievers (Si-Two and Ri-Two). Man-su is devastated after being laid off from his paper company management role after 25<\/span>\u00a0years, and despite assurances from his wife he\u2019ll find a\u00a0new job soon, 13<\/span> months later he\u2019s stacking boxes in a\u00a0warehouse, desperately interviewing for a\u00a0more senior position. After a\u00a0series of calamities, with house foreclosure pending, Man-su becomes truly desperate, and after becoming mildly obsessed with the cool middle manager at Moon Paper, realises the job market is simply too competitive. Wouldn\u2019t it be easier if he thinned out the\u00a0herd?<\/span><\/p>\n The problem is, Man-su isn\u2019t as cut-throat as he fancies himself, and his murder plot isn\u2019t particularly thought out. Cur a\u00a0series of further misadventures as he schemes to take out his potential competition, in process threatening his own family, hard-worn sobriety and very humanity as he finds it becomes easier and easier to convince himself that his providence is more important than the lives of others. Parallels to Bong Joon-ho\u2019s <\/span>Parasite <\/span><\/i>are so obvious that immediately following <\/span>No Other Choice<\/span><\/i>\u200b\u2019<\/span>s Venice premi\u00e8re several critics cited the 2020<\/span> Best Picture winner in their reviews, but this easy comparison does threaten to undermine the specificity of both films. South Korean filmmakers with prickly senses of humour who enjoy a\u00a0social satire? The headline writes itself. While the two directors are peers with shared interests and there is undoubtedly some common DNA<\/span>, <\/span>No Other Choice <\/span><\/i>confronts erasure of our humanity as we\u2019re anonymised and homogenised by capitalism. At the start of the film, the company Man-Su is laid off from hire a\u00a0genial woman to provide an affirmations class to the sacked employees; this withering detail speaks to a\u00a0world in which companies would rather assign value to the illusion of care than its actual delivery.<\/span><\/p>\n Director Park\u2019s eye for expressive camerawork ensures a\u00a0sense of dynamism and urgency that brings wit to the absurdity of Man-su\u2019s situation, whether it\u2019s a\u00a0camera strapped to a\u00a0dog or the comedic timing of a\u00a0low-angle shot as our murderous middle-manager considers dropping a\u00a0heavy plant pot on a\u00a0rival to take him out. One particularly lovely (and amusing!) detail is a\u00a0minor one: Si-one has a\u00a0matching raincoat with the family dogs. This attention to detail and precision in No Other Choice<\/i>\u200b\u2019<\/span>s visual language create a\u00a0world where we understand the stakes, and although we might not share Man-su\u2019s murderous intentions, they do make sense in a\u00a0bizarre way. That the handsome but often pathetic Man-su is such a\u00a0compelling character is a\u00a0credit to both Director Park and the wonderful Lee Byung-hun, whose performance is a\u00a0masterclass in the tension between comedy and tragedy. Moments of pathos brush up against self-entitlement and self-aggrandising, and while it would be easy to dismiss Man-su as a\u00a0middle-class misery who refuses to do work he deems beneath him, Director Park puts effort into explaining <\/span>why <\/span><\/i>Man-su feels this way, and how generations of toiling under capitalism create self-serving individuals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Even as the death roll of capitalism continues to clutch Hollywood in its jaws, <\/span>No Other Choice <\/span><\/i>proves in the hands of a\u00a0master there\u2019s still fertile ground to be found, and his biting, incendiary dramedy calls into question how much we\u2019re willing to accept \u2013 and how far we\u2019re willing to go \u2013 in the name of preserving our own comfort.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nGet more Little White\u00a0Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n