No Other Choice
Drama • 2h 19m
Eojjeol Suga Eopda
This movie was screened on 82. Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica 2025
In a world where work defines existence, You Man-su loses his role and, with it, his dignity. Driven by desperation and an obsession with recognition, he weaves together vengeance and madness, turning the pursuit of employment into a grotesque and unsettling life game
“The evils of capitalism begin with an Excel sheet and a list of the fired.”
— Fabrizio Caramagna
No Other Choice presents itself as Park Chan-wook’s attempt to merge social satire with entertainment, yet the result is a work suspended in no-man’s-land, incapable of either amusing or leaving a lasting impact. From the visionary hand of the Oldboy director, who had shaped the poetic ferocity of the Vengeance Trilogy, one would have expected a ruthless, complex, and radical vision; instead, only a mannered gesture emerges—a caricature that fails to bite.
The film seems intent on addressing job insecurity, contemporary obsession with competition, and the body and identity sacrificed on the altar of profit. Yet the metaphor quickly fades, giving way to grotesque humor that never dares to go all the way. Sequences designed to be ironic dissolve into predictable gags, incapable of generating genuine laughter or deep reflection. The ridiculous remains superficial, never touching that existential abyss that transforms satire into tragedy.
The protagonist, portrayed simultaneously as victim and executioner, evokes neither empathy nor horror: he remains a tragic puppet moving through a meticulously designed but sterile set. The staging, impeccable as always in Park’s cinema, becomes here an aesthetic shell that cannot conceal the fragility of the writing. It is an exercise in style lacking flesh, pain, and necessity.
The comparison with Costa-Gavras’ The Head Hunter is inevitable: where the Greek director could depict the ruthless clarity of the working world and the alienation of man reduced to a cog, Park seems confined to a visual game devoid of real bite. The original remains far superior, uniting political clarity and moral tension without retreating into hollow irony.
In the end, No Other Choice leaves the viewer in a gray zone of indifference: it neither shakes, entertains, nor wounds. It is a film that strives for lightness but stumbles, a work that, instead of traversing the abyss of the present, settles for drawing masks without blood. From the genius who gave us unforgettable visions of vengeance, this misstep weighs all the more heavily: grotesque and black comedy without the edge that would justify its irreverence.
“Capitalism always risks inspiring men to be more interested in making a living than in living.”
— Martin Luther King.
This movie was in the official competition of 82nd Venice International Film Festival 2025
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