It’s been an indisputably big year for Korean media here in the USA. In such a historically bad year for new pop songs, one of the rare few recent pop hits to chart was an adaptation of a Korean drinking game, from a Korean singer. Not to mention K-Pop Demon Hunters, a film and a soundtrack that both thoroughly dominated the global zeitgeist to an extent that I haven’t seen since the first Frozen.
But then we have the other side of Korean media: The crippling socioeconomic anxiety and fiery hatred of billionaires. Of course American cinema has no shortage of films on such topics, but nothing on the level of, say, Parasite. And of course we can’t forget Save the Green Planet!, the Korean film that got adapted into Bugonia just a few months ago.
And now we have No Other Choice, another film in which a character is driven to homicidal madness due to economic anxiety.
(Side note: I should perhaps mention that the film is adapted from “The Ax”, an American novel by the late Donald E. Westlake that got published 30 years ago.)
This is the story of Yoo Man-su, played by Lee Byung-hun. He got hired directly out of high school to get his start in the paper manufacturing industry. After 25 years with the company, he’s now a high-level manager with a degree in chemistry.
That all changes when Man-su’s company gets bought out by some American conglomerate, leaving Man-su laid off and jobless for the first time in his adult life. What’s worse, the entire paper manufacturing industry is rapidly downsizing, which means a great many career professionals are now competing for increasingly rare jobs. Thus Man-su sets out to track down and murder the job seekers who might be more qualified than he is. Like you do.
What we’ve got here is a satire of an economic system designed to turn working-class pawns against each other. Hell, it’s right there in the title: Pretty much anytime anyone does anything in this movie, it’s implied or outright stated that they’re a victim of the predatory system as currently designed. We could debate all day as to whether that’s a legitimate excuse or deflecting blame — indeed, there’s at least one character who practically screams that getting laid off isn’t the problem, it’s the reaction to being laid off. Even so, the point stands that in the moment, every character acts as if they have no other choice.
Moreover, it’s a suspense thriller with a protagonist who gradually devolves into something recognizably less human as he grows more comfortable killing. Which leads to the question of whether all the killing is ultimately worth the end goal, and whether the end goal will be something possible or desirable when everything settles. Assuming, of course, that our protagonist will actually get away with everything.
So far, this is all straightforward and predictable stuff. But then we get into the finer details. Let’s start with Man-su’s home and family.
When the film opens, we see that Man-su is living with his family in a huge, beautiful house. They’ve got all sorts of modern comforts and luxuries. Man-su’s wife (Mi-ri, played by Son Ye-Jin) is a stay-at-home mom who spends most of her leisure time playing tennis. Together, they’ve got two kids (more on them later), two dogs, and two cars.
In summary, we’ve got here is a kind of riches-to-rags story. This is a family and a patriarch that has never known desperate. A family whose idea of “rock bottom” is giving up Netflix, giving up tennis, moving to an apartment, the mother getting a job, and so on. And the basic premise of the story is that we’ve got a man who would literally rather commit murder than give up the relatively lavish lifestyle his family is used to. There’s something sickly subversive about that.
But then we start to learn more about the family and their home. To start with, there’s the fact that this isn’t just any house — it’s Man-su’s childhood home. He spent years working up the money to purchase it and renovate it to his own specifications. And that’s after the unspeakable family tragedy that happened there.
Mi-ri does indeed find work as a dental hygienist, and it’s worth pointing out that she finds stable work much faster than Man-su does. Naturally, this changes the family dynamic in a big way, now that Mi-ri is not only capable of supporting herself but also her husband and the rest of the family. And it certainly doesn’t help that Mi-ri’s boss is an attractive and much younger man (Dr. Oh Jin-ho, played by Yoo Yeon-suk).
The upshot is that Man-su is plainly and deeply emasculated. Case in point: Man-su would — and literally does — suffer through the entire movie with a debilitating toothache rather than solicit help from his wife and her boss. Who’s a dentist, for fuck’s sake.
Speaking of pride, it’s worth remembering that Man-su and his intended victims all work in paper manufacturing. Their industry is responsible for mass deforestation in a world increasingly concerned about climate change and ecological damage. More importantly, the film repeatedly and explicitly presents paper as a metaphor for analog media in an increasingly digital age. Hell, the very concept of manual workers is increasingly irrelevant in a time when all labor across all industries is getting mechanized and automated.
The message is sent loud and clear that Man-su and his colleagues are a dying breed. For one reason or another, to varying degrees, Man-su and those like him are either unable or unwilling to adapt with the times. And it’s not like they don’t have options — Man-su and those on his level are all demonstrably competent managers who could be a team lead in any industry, or maybe even start their own business. And you’d think these people would have other interests and skills outside of the paper industry. (Mi-ri herself points out that Man-su is a passionate gardener, that’s a marketable skill.) But no, Man-su and his intended victims all grew up in the paper manufacturing industry, and they’d all rather die than change.
That said, there is one notable exception: Ko Si-jo, played by Cha Seung-won. Here we have someone who actually did make the choice to try and move on to some other industry. He’s clearly not as happy and the job can’t pay anywhere near as well, but at least he’s making the effort. I don’t dare spoil any more about the character and what happens with him, except that it’s a huge moment for our protagonist.
But let’s get back to the family, because I’d be remiss not to mention the kids. We’ve got Si-one (Woo Seung Kim), Mi-ri’s son from a previous marriage. The kicker is that Si-one doesn’t know about his birth father, and Man-su throws another emasculated hissy fit every time Mi-ri ever thinks to obliquely mention the simple fact that Si-one isn’t his biological son. As if that takes away from Man-su’s dedication and ability as a father in any way that matters.
Last but not least, there’s Ri-one, here played by So Yul Choi. Here we have an eccentric girl who doesn’t really talk or socialize much. She can only really speak through her cello, and she’s such a musical prodigy that her tutoring needs are a significant financial strain on the family. The film never comes right out and says so much, but there’s a heavy implication that she’s supposed to be autistic. Though honestly, by the standards of how most films portray autism, this depiction isn’t bad.
What’s significantly worse is the cultural appropriation. I refer to a mercifully brief sequence in which Mi-ri and her boss attend a dance party in costume as Native American stereotypes. What’s worse, Mi-ri set up a couples costume in which she and her husband show up as — excuse me while I cringe hard enough to set my hairline back two inches — Captain John Smith and Pocahontas. Is it offensive and racist? Unbe-fucking-lievably so. But seeing as there are so few Native Americans in South Korea to rightfully raise a stink about it, we may at least assume that the filmmakers simply didn’t know any better.
Speaking of nitpicks, I could point out a number of trippy visuals and weird cuts in the third act that don’t tonally match the rest of the movie. More importantly, the film says it’s such a huge deal that Man-su and his family could lose their home, but there’s no urgency to really sell those stakes. And anyway, isn’t Man-su supposed to be broke? I thought that was the whole point of this premise. If he is, how can he afford to pay for everything he needs in the course of his murder plots?
All of those nitpicks aside, I was not ready for how funny this movie is. Honestly, the film is outright farcical at times, delivering murder with humor in a way that makes for delectably dark comedy. Even better, the humor is blended and balanced in just such a way that the protagonist is sympathetic enough that we understand where he’s coming from, yet unsympathetic enough that we can enjoy watching him suffer. This is the stuff that great satire is made of.
No Other Choice gets by on its pitch-black sense of humor, incisive satire, and neat little details tucked away in the margins. The only real downside — and it’s a big one — is that the film runs on a pedestrian plot. There are a great many scenes — most especially the ending — when the filmmakers pull their punches, delivering a scene that’s nowhere near as bold or creative as what the movie needed.
It’s a good movie, but it ain’t Parasite. That might be an unfair comparison, but given the film’s marketing and release window, it’s where the bar was set. This one gets a recommendation with adjusted expectations.