Director Park Chan-wook has never been interested in comfort or predictability. With No Other Choice, the acclaimed filmmaker once again plunges audiences into morally unsettling territory, this time using the brutal realities of the modern job market as his weapon of choice. Anchored by a deeply unsettling performance from Lee Byung-hun, the film is a bleak, darkly comic descent into desperation, paranoia, and the illusion of necessity.
Based on Donald Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax, No Other Choice adapts a story that has already been reshaped once before for the screen. Yet Park’s version feels uncannily timely, reflecting anxieties that define today’s workforce: automation, artificial intelligence, mass layoffs, and the quiet erosion of human worth in corporate decision-making.
A Man Pushed to the Edge
Lee Byung-hun plays Man-su, a longtime employee at a paper factory who is abruptly laid off after years of loyal service. The termination is framed as routine, almost polite, which only deepens its cruelty. Man-su initially responds the way society expects him to—updating his résumé, applying for jobs, and attending interviews. But as months stretch into more than a year, hope slowly drains away.
In the unforgiving job market of 2025, pounding the pavement leads nowhere. Manufacturing industries are rapidly automating, replacing human labor with AI-driven systems. Paper factories, once a symbol of industrial stability, are now streamlined operations requiring only a single human supervisor.
Man-su discovers that there is exactly one position left for someone like him. And that realization changes everything.
A Premise Rooted in Economic Fear
When Westlake wrote The Ax, corporate downsizing was the dominant fear. When the novel was previously adapted in the mid-2000s, outsourcing loomed large. Park Chan-wook updates the premise with chilling precision, identifying AI and automation as the modern executioner.
Man-su does not simply want a job—he wants this job. He believes paper is his destiny, his only skill, and his only identity. Rather than pivoting to another industry, he becomes obsessed with eliminating the competition for the Moon Paper Company position.
The twist, however, is that Man-su is not a natural killer.
A Killer Who Doesn’t Know How to Kill
Unlike typical crime thrillers, No Other Choice refuses to turn Man-su into a sleek, efficient assassin. He hesitates. He panics. He fails. His attempts to remove rival candidates are clumsy, ill-conceived, and frequently absurd.
Park Chan-wook deliberately undercuts audience expectations. The film never becomes a revenge fantasy or a cathartic tale of justified violence. Instead, each failure adds another layer of humiliation and moral decay.
As Man-su stalks his rivals, he learns that they are just as desperate as he is—men crushed by the same economic forces, clinging to the same fading hope. This shared misery robs the story of easy villains and forces the audience to sit with their discomfort.
The deeper Man-su sinks, the stranger his problem-solving becomes. His “solutions” to violence veer into dark absurdity, twisting familiar crime-movie logic into something unsettlingly comic. Park wisely avoids glamorizing these moments, turning them instead into reflections of a man losing his grip on reality.
Domestic Fallout and Emotional Cost
As bleak as Man-su’s external journey is, No Other Choice is just as concerned with what happens inside the home. Son Ye-jin delivers a quietly devastating performance as Miri, Man-su’s wife, who bears the silent burden of financial collapse.
She sells off valuables. Subscriptions and small luxuries disappear. Even their children feel the weight of sacrifice when beloved pets are given away. Each decision is practical, rational—and heartbreaking.
Eventually, the family prepares to sell their house, a process that is painfully slow and uncertain. These domestic scenes ground the film emotionally, reminding viewers that layoffs never affect just one person.
Paranoia, Comparison, and Crumbling Trust
During his surveillance of rival candidates, Man-su begins to notice something unsettling: many of them lack supportive partners. Some are isolated, others emotionally abandoned. This realization sparks a dangerous mix of sympathy and paranoia.
He begins to wonder whether Miri will remain loyal as his prospects continue to shrink. The comparison corrodes his sense of security, feeding the same fear that drives his professional obsession. Park uses these moments to explore how economic instability seeps into emotional relationships, warping trust and intimacy.
The Power of a Title
Earlier adaptations retained the novel’s original title, a reference to companies “axing” jobs. Park Chan-wook’s decision to rename the film No Other Choice proves thematically devastating.
Executives throughout the film repeat the phrase with corporate calm: there was no other choice but layoffs, no other choice but automation, no other choice but efficiency. The repetition becomes a hollow mantra used to justify cruelty.
Man-su mirrors the same logic. He insists he has no other choice but to work in paper. No other choice but to outlast his rivals. No other choice but to cross moral lines he once believed were unthinkable.
Of course, the film quietly challenges this logic. Paper is not the only industry. Violence is not the only solution. But desperation narrows vision until alternatives disappear.
A Film Without Easy Answers
No Other Choice offers no solutions to the modern employment crisis. It does not pretend that resilience alone can overcome systemic collapse. What it does offer is a sharp rejection of the most extreme fantasies—those that imagine violence or ruthless competition as a way out.
Park Chan-wook crafts a narrative filled with surprising developments, denying audiences the satisfaction of clean resolutions. Desperate measures, the film argues, do not necessarily resolve desperate times. They often deepen the damage instead.
Lee Byung-hun’s performance anchors the film with painful authenticity. He makes Man-su neither hero nor monster, but something far more unsettling: recognizable.
Final Verdict
No Other Choice is a dark, unsettling, and sharply relevant film that transforms economic anxiety into psychological horror. With biting satire, emotional realism, and moments of grim absurdity, Park Chan-wook delivers a story that lingers long after the credits roll.
It is not an easy watch—but it is a necessary one.