No Other Choice film review: Horribly good
This savage satire hits its targets hard while strong performances keep matters ticking over
One of the most dynamic directors working today, South Korea’s Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden) returns with the blackly comic No Other Choice. This adaptation of Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax (previously made into a 2005 French-language feature by Costa-Gavras) turns a savagely satirical lens on the business world. It follows a paper industry executive who, in an attempt to preserve his domestic idyll, plots to kill off his competitors.
Squid Game’s Lee Byung-hun plays Yoo Man-su, who takes being let go from his job of 25 years very badly indeed, embarking on a murderous campaign to restore his reputation. Son Ye-jin appears as Man-su’s dental assistant wife Mi-ri, who spots her husband’s strange behaviour and gets a shock when she literally starts digging, while Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min and Cha Seung-won feature as three fellow paper experts who are identified for elimination.
Lee is phenomenal as he takes Man-su from respectable family man to psycho killer, with Son excellent as his initially adoring but eventually appalled wife. Park is a master of bad-taste antics and No Other Choice has bravura flourishes aplenty, including some impeccably executed death scenes. It pokes fun at automation, the arrogance of the elite, and the façade of happy families, yet flags a little over its epic length, which feels ill-suited to the irreverent material (by contrast Park’s superb, ever-evolving Decision To Leave wore its identical runtime exceptionally well). But, as ever with Park, you’re in for a horribly good time.
No Other Choice is in cinemas from Friday 23 January.