The Ax, the American novel No Other Choice adapts, was written in 1997. It came on the tail-end of a period marred by corporate downsizing, with 6 million jobs slashed between 1987 and 1993. The novel centers on a man pushed to the absolute brink by just such a layoff. At the time, it grabbed Park Chan-wook’s eye, and he’s been hoping to adapt it ever since. That he’s finally done it in 2025 feels fortuitous, given the economy’s increasing precariousness.

In No Other Choice, Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) is a respected paper industry manager with 25 years of experience. But when an American corporation buys the company he works for, it lays him off along with hundreds of other workers. After nearly a year and a half of Man-su being unable to find full-time work, his family’s comfort and way of life are in jeopardy. So, he devises a plan to systematically find and kill his biggest rivals in the job market until he’s the only qualified candidate.

I immediately thought of my decade-plus working in the corporate sphere and the nearly endless annual layoffs. My friends, working full-time as critics and journalists, have never worked a day without the sword of Damocles hovering overhead. Workers in LA’s film industry likely can’t imagine working anywhere long enough to even worry about a layoff. Their contracts simply end without a renewal in sight. 

All of which is to say, audiences won’t have to try very hard to put themselves in Yoo Man-su’s shoes. Thankfully, Park softens the blow with his usual flair for finding the comic in the tragic. The results are pure, black comedy gold.

He plays with contrasts, opening the film with a scene of such perfect household bliss it’s downright absurd. He unleashes his inner Sirk with the bright colors and gorgeous framing so fully you almost expect Rock Hudson to pop out and do a little landscaping. So when we get to a shot of Yoo Man-su shouting, “I feel GREAT!” it’s no surprise that Park follows the moment with a smash cut to a title card announcing he’s been looking for work for 13 months.

Park also plays with these juxtapositions through his consistent use of double exposure, layering one character over another to further entangle an already messy knot. Life itself layers absurdity over tragedy over terror over love. Rarely does any emotion ever actually get to exist on its own, whether we’re conscious of that fact or not.

That the entire cast, especially Lee as Man-su, is so deftly capable of walking that high-wire act in their performances is astounding. Even at his most selfish and villainous, Lee brings a yearning and tenderness to Man-su. That humanity makes it impossible to root against him even as you wish he would stop following through on absolutely everything he’s doing.

Son Ye-jin, who plays Man-su’s wife Miri, matches Lee beat for beat, her presence felt even when she’s not on-screen. Wherever this family ends up, you believe they’re committed to getting there together.

The entire film, down to the title, is one big, bleak joke. To have “no other choice” in No Other Choice is to know without a doubt that, of course, you do. The particular and specific way that capitalism traps us is the force that blinds us to our options. When a company insists they have no other choice than to fire thousands of people and automate their jobs to appease a stock price, Park and the audience know that it’s a sinister lie—a lie exactly as sinister as the one Yoo tells himself.

Handily, one of the best films of the year, Park guiding the audience through these difficult emotions is a gift. He knows the best, if not only, way to do it is to laugh.

No Other Choice hits the unemployment lines in limited theatres starting on December 3 and expanding throughout the month and beyond.

No Other Choice Trailer: