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| yna@yna.co.kr 2025-09-21 07:41:52
By Woo Jae-yeon
BUSAN, Sept. 19 (Yonhap) -- There are moments when happiness seems to swell to its peak, becoming so complete and absolute that it feels unsustainable. That realization stirs an urgent anxiety that such perfection cannot last, and the only thing left to come is a free fall.
This precarious nature of happiness is palpable in the opening sequences of Park Chan-wook's black satire "No Other Choice."
Man-soo (Lee Byung-hun) barbecues eels his company sent him in his lush garden that he has diligently tended. He believes the eels are a token of appreciation from the paper production factory he has dedicated himself to over two decades.
He, then, joyfully dances with his wife, Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), surrounded by their two children and two golden retrievers, declaring "I've got it all."
This scene of perfect domestic bliss is further accentuated by the gentle fall of pink petals and the golden warmth of the afternoon sun.
With a sense of foreboding permeating the seemingly flawless moment, however, the idyllic facade is abruptly shattered. The eels, it turns out, are not a gift of gratitude, but a farewell gesture from his company. With this revelation comes the beginning of Man-soo's descent.
He is suddenly laid off and thrust into a desperate battle to regain his footing in a cut-throat world. As the industry increasingly moves toward automation, there are just too many "Man-soos," middle-aged managers deemed too expensive and too "old" to keep, regardless of their skills and experience.
Seeing "no other choice," Man-soo turns to extreme measures to keep bread on the table for his beloved family by eliminating his rivals.
Director Park gives a biting edge to Man-soo's desperate struggle for survival, blending harsh reality with the protagonist's tender heart, innate clumsiness and compassion for fellow "paper men." His three chief rivals, who look disarmingly ordinary and far from formidable, add to the irony of Man-soo's violence and demonstrate the lack of justification for it.
Man-soo's porous scheme to take out Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min), who sits serenely in his audio room, listening to music, become the film's ultimate laugh-through-tears moment.
In the ensuing absurd slapstick chaos, Man-soo, Beom-mo and A-ra, Beom-mo's wife played by Yeom Hye-ran, entangle themselves in a frantic fight to kill or to survive, while their desperate cries are swallowed by "The Dragonfly," a melancholic 1981 hit by South Korea's legendary singer Cho Yong-pil.
A-ra's relentless pursuit of Man-soo, driven by revenge for her husband, unfolds amid a visually striking backdrop, rich with meticulous detail, a hallmark of auteur Park. The brutal intensity of the chase contrasts sharply with the nonchalant beauty of color-changing autumn trees, making the situation all the more tragic.
Some scenes, however, threaten to shatter the audience's faith in Man-soo's desperation -- moments that dare viewers to question whether his extreme measures are truly born of necessity and whether he really has "no other choice." For example, his interaction with another rival, Seon-chul (Park Hee-soon), slows the film's momentum, abruptly jolting the audience out of the narrative and breaking the director's carefully crafted spell.
Though billed as Park's funniest film to date, "No Other Choice" is, at its core, a deadly serious tale about one man's fight for survival and that of his family. The narrative is sure to resonate widely as their struggle mirrors those of countless others in a society where intelligent machines are poised to replace human labor.
Two thoughts linger after the credits: Man-soo's family is complicit in this, and just a touch more comedy might have made the film's dark humor hit even harder.
[ⓒ K-VIBE. 무단전재-재배포 금지]