No Other Choice review – A brutal and hilarious murder thriller from South Korea’s master of shock

There’s no coming out of a Park Chan Wook film with your hands clean. It’s why the infamous twist at the end of his revenge thriller Oldboy felt so shocking – in the implication of shared guilt, when all we did was witness and, perhaps, find some empathy in another’s torment. His new black comedy, No Other Choice, feels particularly tacky (in the adhesive sense), as if it might require a lint roller to finally scrape off its effect on us.

Perhaps it’s because it concerns itself with a near-universal sin: participation in the gladiatorial arena that is the job market. As if to underline the point, Park’s film adapts a 1997 American novel, The Ax by Donald Westlake, already adapted in 2005 by Greek-French director Costa-Gavras (to whom the film is dedicated).

It’s set in the director’s native country, South Korea. Yoo Man Su (Lee Byung Hun), is introduced to us in eerily blissful circumstances, BBQ-ing up an eel sent to him by his employers, Solar Paper, for his beautiful wife Lee Miri (Son Yejin), and adorable children Si One (Kim Woo Seung) and Ri One (Choi So Yul). He ushers them all in for a group hug – even their golden retrievers, Si Two and Ri Two, prod their noses into the huddle.

Then, of course, as life tends to go, Man Su is informed that an American conglomerate has bought up Solar Paper and he’s been made redundant. A blood vessel thumps in his head. A promise made to his family that he’ll find a new job within the next three months proves futile and, as the severance pay dries up, Miri starts to talk of cutbacks. Man Su, in turn, grows more and more desperate. Dropping to his knees in front of Choi Sun Chul (Park Hee Soon), a manager at rival company Moon Paper, he pleads, “My wife cancelled Netflix!”

Park has a galvanising kind of curiosity behind the lens, pairing here with cinematographer Kim Woo Hyung. There’s always a new, unexpected angle to either watch Man Su or see his point of view, whether from the bottom of a beer glass or via a phone mid-FaceTime (he’s particularly gifted in the art of depicting technology on screen, as demonstrated by his previous film, the silkier but no less surprising Decision to Leave). It creates its own, creeping intimacy.

And so, when Man Su comes up with the plan to kill Sun Chul and take his job, we have – and sorry to borrow the film’s title and repeated mantra – no other choice but to invest in his madness. Because it’s not enough to simply take out Sun Chul, when a competitor might easily take his place. Man Su, then, creates a fake paper company and advertises the same position to draw out and then murder his biggest competitors, Bummo (Lee Sung Min) and Sijo (Cha Seung Won).

It’s a whole slapstick affair, conducted with Park’s trademark finesse, and taking full advantage of Lee’s comedic skills (he’s a major, established star in Korea, though largely known internationally for his role as the Front Man in Netflix’s Squid Game). Man Su doesn’t hesitate in the planning of a murder, but seems entirely unfit for its execution. He stumbles, panics, and holds his hand up so he doesn’t have to look a man in the eye when he shoots him.

Man Su’s need to succeed overrides any consideration of how it’s achieved, it seems – to survive in such a competitive job market, inevitably, means others must not. Lee’s expression, like a wilted flower, speaks to any and all loss of identity and humanity. And Park, as timeless as his subject might be, still weaves in the looming threat of AI to provide a final kick to the audience’s throat. What will happen when we’re all forced to lose?

Dir: Park Chan Wook. Starring: Lee Byung Hun, Son Yejin, Park Hee Soon, Lee Sung Min, Yeom Hye Ran, Cha Seung Won. Cert 15, 139 minutes.

‘No Other Choice’ is in cinemas from 23 January