Written by Andreas Babiolakis

Warning: This review is for No Other Choice, which is a film presented at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. There may be slight spoilers present. Reader discretion is advised.

Image courtesy of the Toronto International film Festival.

When I covered Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave, I was impressed by the South Korean director’s ability to dial his obsession with the taboo back. I adored seeing him work with restraint, leading to his most ambient and mystifying film to date. This neo-noir remains a high benchmark of 2020s cinema, and possibly the best film Chan-wook has directed thus far (which is saying a lot). Since he has proven himself time and time again, I wouldn’t say that there was pressure on the auteur to deliver after Decision to Leave (he has established himself as a contemporary great by now), but I was curious to see what would come afterwards: a film as guarded and nuanced as Decision to Leave, or something more controversial and uncomfortable like Oldboy or The Handmaiden. We land somewhere in the middle with No Other Choice: a film that is paradoxically stylistic-reality like Decision to Leave while reveling in the twisted gore and comedy like most of Chan-wook’s other films. This is great news for fans of the director, but it should be a green flag for all kinds of cinephiles: here is a film that is equal parts serious and dangerously entertaining.

My screening of No Other Choice elicited many comparisons to Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, and I think that is selling No Other Choice a little short. Sure, both films are South Korean; they deal with class-based struggles; they have genre-bending shifts and twists; they both star Son Ye-jin. However, while these films would make for a strong double-feature, selling No Other Choice as Parasite 2.0 is dismissive and lazy. No Other Choice is so clever on its own terms. Based on Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax (which was previously adapted by Costa-Gavras, who gets a tribute during No Other Choice’s credits), Chan-wook’s film stars Lee Byung-hun as You Man-su: a veteran of the paper manufacturing industry. He has a lovely wife, Lee Miri (Son Ye-jin), two children, two dogs, and a fancy house to hold them all. They have their passions, including the daughter’s musical brilliance, that are being fostered. Everything is in its right place, as is indicated by Man-su in an early scene; he is not taking this for granted.

It doesn’t take long for Man-su’s company to be bought by North American moguls, and massive layoffs ensue; this includes Man-su, despite his best efforts to remain integral. No Other Choice kicks off a chain reaction of devastation. Unpaid bills keep piling up. Work is slim out there, and Man-su is not making ends meet. They may have to sell their beautiful home. They certainly have to give their dogs to someone else because they cannot afford to feed them anymore. How much worse can life get? No Other Choice reveals how deep rock bottom goes, and we don’t even get halfway there before the film begins to showcase its real intentions. Man-su cannot find work. The job market is just too competitive. However, what if it wasn’t? What if the market got thinned out? Man-su goes through the painstaking effort of finding three applicants who have applied to the same paper company job he has, and he comes up with a plan: eliminate them. If they are gone, he goes from fourth-best to being the prime selection. He has to be picked.

No Other Choice turns into a bit of an anthology tale: the three promising candidates Man-su has to exterminate and their circumstances. These aren’t fortunate souls. We learn that they are in tricky situations just like Man-su, and that this job could save their lives. When the failing economy turns every career path into a dog-eat-dog standoff, we no longer feel compassionate. No Other Choice reminds us to be empathetic. We never root against the men Man-su hopes to kill, but we also do not hope for his complete downfall either. This is because we see ourselves in this film. Any of us who have struggled to find work at all during these tumultuous times know what this desperation feels like. We don’t go as far as the characters here with our dark side, but maybe our psyche has gotten similarly grim through frustration, grief, and depression. We cannot condone what is going on, but we understand it enough; Chan-wook is just channeling the worst of our inner thoughts into a bleak comedy-drama. We laugh along, but No Other Choice also hits so close to home.

It is in its final sequence that No Other Choice becomes elevated from psychological study to something philosophical. We get the obvious statement: how much work is being handed over to technological tools, costing the livelihoods of countless people. This much is certain. What comes during the credits is the largest eye-opener: a paper-based allegory of how much actual slaughter big businesses partake in. We felt so much compassion to human beings we have only just met, but why not the trees and millions of other resources that are decimated every hour? We don’t see how careers can literally kill beings, and yet Chan-wook informs us that industries do murder; just not in the ways that No Other Choice makes apparent from the jump. Maybe we are too far gone as a species. How do we turn back to protect the planet; to aid ourselves?

Chan-wook delivers another genre-mashing affair with No Other Choice: one that indulges in the psychotic fun of his earlier works and the pathos of his more serious projects. While the director can get carried away with pushing the buttons of his audience via other projects, No Other Choice is disturbing enough without going too far. It is aware of what it can say about the state of the world without being forcibly on-the-nose or edgy. Instead, it uses its podium to put you in a new perspective: one of complete hopelessness to the point of being driven to insanity. We empathize, and are capable of exiting No Other Choice to return to our actual lives, no matter how bad things are for us (I guarantee the majority of people alive are experiencing hardship). We know we cannot go the route of these characters, even if we are worse off. We have to keep fighting to keep afloat. We mustn’t let an imbalanced system cost us our lives. We have no other choice.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.