One of the funniest scenes in film this year is a murder.
Specifically, it’s a terribly botched murder, in which a desperate man tricks another man into applying for a fake paper-making company so that he can eliminate him as competition for a role at another real paper-making company. The convolution of that explanation is precisely the point of Park Chan-wook’s sensational No Other Choice, which thoughtfully unspools how desperation borne from insurmountable conditions leads to farcical but tragic outcomes. Yoo Man-su, played by South Korean acting superstar Lee Byung-hun, is not a natural-born killer. Still, he is desperate enough to force himself to become one if it means reclaiming his stolen socioeconomic position.
What the desperate would-be killer doesn’t account for is his victim’s drunkenness and the arrival of his victim’s frustrated wife right before he pulls the trigger. The clash of unfortunate timing and generally poor criminal plotting leads to a riotous sequence where bullets fly, bodies roll on the floor, and pop music plays on the stereo. Someone also dies, but it feels like a deliberate footnote amidst the chaos that Chan-wook lays out on the screen.
For Byung-hun, the music room scene was the film’s funniest for him when he first read Chan-wook’s script, and most reflective of the filmmaker’s approach to comedy and satire. “When I was reading the script, I was truly laughing a lot,” Byung-hun said in an interview with Geek Vibes Nation. “I think that the strength of the script and what makes it extremely unique is that when you’re laughing, you might be left with a bitter aftertaste, or you might be feeling glum reading a certain section. The script had a lot of these dichotomous emotions.”
There are several entry points into No Other Choice. There is the futility of self-help media in the face of true strife, as skewered by Yoo’s participation in a job-seeking seminar where he’s led through a head-tapping exercise while repeating positive affirmations about their employment prospects. Closer to home lies the lingering effects of a patriarch’s struggles with addiction on his family, and how it sows discord already simmering beneath the surface. Sitting beside that is the strength of the family unit, specifically testing its sturdiness beneath behavior that, by all measures, is abhorrent and beyond recompense, a thematic thread that lies with Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), Yoo’s wife.
However, the entry point that has captured the most critical attention is No Other Choice’s exploration of the creaky, likely unsustainable state of late-stage capitalism. The film is in conversation with other South Korean titles that have captured the Western imagination in recent years, including Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite, its follow-up Mickey 17, and the Netflix megahit series Squid Game. Similar to those projects, No Other Choice places its protagonist in extraordinary circumstances that are created by the excesses of capitalist thought and tracks how its demands can push people to their darkest, and sometimes painfully funny, extremes. Looking at the current state of the American economy, where “affordability” has become a late-breaking contender for word of the year, Yoo’s lack of choices, as alluded to in the title, feels startlingly close to being relatable.
And yet, when asked about the role of capitalism in the film, Byung-hun suggests that tying it solely to one economic system is narrower than Chan-wook’s authorial intent, and not at the forefront of his mind as he explored his role.
“Of course, the film talks about capitalism, but I don’t think it’s limited to capitalism as a system itself,” Byung-hun explained. “I was asking myself, in making the film, about these systems that we build to help people and if they actually really help people.”
We see several of those systems play out in the film, to hilarious and disconcerting effect. Pointing to the former is the aforementioned self-help seminar, as is Yoo practicing a rousing speech advocating for his workers’ rights (before the company’s new American owners lay him off). Leaning towards the latter is how easily Yoo can manipulate several structures, from social media to online resumes, to stalk and systematically kill the other job candidates.
“It’s a bitter afterthought,” Byung-hun said of how Yoo’s actions reflect the failures of those societal systems. “Even when we look at him, we may see him as a victim of the capitalist system. However, he becomes a perpetrator by eliminating his competition. So, there is a dark sense of irony there.”
Yoo isn’t alone in perpetrating those systems. His family is a key motivating factor in his killing spree, as they face financial ruin and social isolation from his unemployment. As Yoo continues with his plan, his wife Lee senses that something isn’t quite right, a feeling that only worsens when the police come knocking at their door to investigate the crimes. Lee is understandably disturbed by what she infers to be true and conflicted about what that means for her family. Does she ignore what quickly becomes unignorable? Does she hold him accountable somehow? And if she does, what does that mean for her children, already struggling through the adjustments made by Yoo’s firing? Son Ye-jin carries much of the conflict silently, thoughtfully tracking the harrowing impact of Yoo’s actions, while demonstrating palpable comedic and romantic chemistry with Byung-hun.
For Byung-hun, establishing that chemistry was as effortless as it appears on-screen. “We didn’t have to rehearse or practice that much because we’ve known each other for more than 10 years,” Byung-hun said of his working relationship with Ye-jin. “We meet, have dinner, drink, and play golf together. We’re very close friends, so we didn’t have to adjust to each other. When we were on set for the first time, it was very natural and very easy.”
As easy as Byung-hun and Ye-jin’s on-screen bond was to build, the joy of No Other Choice is how it encourages deeper engagement on multiple fronts, from Chan-wook’s stunning directorial flourishes to the themes it engages. It is ultimately what Byung-hun hopes that audiences take away from the film.
“When you watch the film intuitively, I think it can be really fun and packed with humor. However, on the other side, there is a lot of hidden meaning, symbolism, and metaphor. I think it’s a film you can watch in a lot of different ways.”
No Other Choice will debut in select theaters on Christmas Day courtesy of NEON. The film will expand nationwide in January.
A late-stage millennial lover of most things related to pop culture. Becomes irrationally irritated by Oscar predictions that don’t come true.
