Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice is a terrific film and probably one of the best examples of a true dark comedy where the comedy never takes away from what the movie is trying to say. Great writing, acting, genuinely funny moments throughout and underneath all of that is a pretty relevant commentary on the current job market, corporate loyalty basically meaning nothing and how quickly someone can go from feeling secure in their life to fighting just to maintain what they already had. Man-su, played by Lee Byung-hun, spends decades working in the paper industry and has the house, family, and comfortable life he worked for, then suddenly gets thrown out of it. His solution to not being able to beat the competition for another job is obviously extreme, but that is also where a lot of the movie’s humor and satire comes from.

Lee Byung-hun was terrific and does much of the heavy lifting in the film through his performance. What makes the character work so well is that, even as the situation becomes more extreme, he never feels like an exaggerated villain or a completely detached psychopath. There is still a very normal person underneath everything he is doing, someone who spent decades building a life around his work and suddenly has that sense of security and purpose taken away from him. Byung-hun does a great job balancing that desperation with the darker comedy of the situation, especially as Man-su becomes more committed to this increasingly ridiculous solution while still trying to hold onto his role as a husband, father, and provider. What he is doing is of course wrong, but the film gives enough understanding of how he reached that point that there is still a strange level of sympathy for him throughout.

The supporting cast was great too. Lee Sung Min, Cha Seung Won and Park Hee Soon all stood out because the other candidates are not just random people placed there for Man-su to get through, they were basically different versions of him. People who had careers, families, and some sense of security before suddenly finding themselves fighting for the same limited opportunities. Son Yejin was also really good opposite Lee Byung-hun and the family dynamic adds a lot because it shows what Man-su believes he is doing all of this for. The irony being that while he thinks he is protecting his life and family, he is slowly becoming the biggest thing threatening it.

One of the best parts of the film is the satire because while the movie takes everything to an absurd level, the actual idea underneath it really is not that ridiculous. Someone can work somewhere for 20 or 30 years, build their entire life around that career, and still get dropped the second a company decides they are no longer useful enough. Then once they are back in the job market, people who could have easily been coworkers become direct competition for the same position. The movie basically takes the idea of a cutthroat job market and makes it literal, consequences of modern-day capitalism at its basest form. It also never becomes some heavy-handed lecture about corporations or capitalism; it continues to keep its dark comedy and entertainment throughout while still making the point pretty clearly.

Overall, No Other Choice was easily one of the highlights of NYFF63. Really well shot, great framing, creative editing, and a lot of scenes that are just fun to watch even when nothing huge is happening. Lee Byung-hun was fantastic, the supporting cast was strong, and Park Chan-wook took a pretty simple idea of a man losing his long-standing job and extracted a lot out of it. The film is funny, dark, relevant, and really enjoyable from beginning to end. A movie about a guy literally eliminating his competition for a job somehow ends up feeling more relatable than it probably should, which is kind of what makes the whole thing work so well.

4.5/5