Park Chan-wook made his name with his subversively funny, ultra-violent revenge trilogy, which culminated in Oldboy, a film that redefined the phrase ‘getting hammered’ and was remade by Spike Lee. His new film, No Other Choice – which premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival – is itself a remake: of The Ax (2005) by Costa-Gavras. With humour blacker than black bean noodles, the film is a masterful work of cinema which might well be Chan-wook’s masterpiece. And given this is the man who directed The Handmaiden that’s saying a lot.
Man-soo (a brilliant Lee Byung-hun, aka Squid Games’ Front Man) has the perfect life. He is respected by his company, who give him an eel to show their appreciation for his hardwork. He barbecues it in his lovely garden in front of his beautiful house, listening to his genius daughter practice her cello. His loving wife (Son Ye-jin), with a son from a former marriage who he considers his own, supports and loves him and they enjoy dance lessons together. He even has two cracking dogs.
And like an idiot, he can’t help but call attention to his immense good fortune and how happy he is.
So naturally, everything goes wrong. He loses his job at the paper company when the Americans take over and is soon in dire financial straits, with the threat of the bank foreclosing on his mortgage and even having to (gulp) cancel Netflix. With an ultra-competitive job market, Man-soo decides he has ‘no other choice’ than to murder a manager in order to free up a position that he can then fill. Unfortunately, he realises that to be sure of getting the position, he should also kill those who are better qualified than he is as candidates for the job. So far, so cold-bloodedly easy.
It might well be Park Chan-wook’s masterpiece
The obvious point of comparison for this comedy of murderous errors is Bong Joon Ho’s 2019 Oscar winner Parasite. Both deal with late capitalism’s smashing of a family with violent intent; both mix violence and we’re-all-screwed-anyway humour. But Park Chan-wook’s film feels like a successor rather than a competitor. After all, the Squid-Games competitiveness of our new techno-rich, human-poor societies is the race to the bottom that the film opposes.
The biggest joke is that of course there are other choices, something that only the women seem able to see. It is Park Chan-wook’s genius to twist his society into such a labyrinthine knot that his characters can’t escape their own delusions. But it is such a beautifully wrought knot, such a cinematically realised labyrinth.
And Lee Byung-hun’s lead is a man whose hollowness doesn’t preclude his humanity; the heinous nature of his acts doesn’t stop us laughing at them. We have no other choice.
No Other Choice premiered at the Venice Film Festival.