Venice Film Festival 2025: No Other Choice
Director Park Chan-wook returns to Venice with a Machiavellian teardown of capitalism and masculinity that saves its gory best for last
Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice opens to such an idyllic garden scene that you may think you're watching the wrong film. Family man You Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) is celebrating his wife Miri's (Son Ye-jin) birthday with their two kids and two Golden Retrievers. As summer fades into autumn, a group hug seals the deal on an intro that marks the beginning of the end.
Shortly afterwards, Man-su is left stunned when the paper factory he’s worked at for 25 years unceremoniously fires him. Making paper in all its textures, grammages, and uses is the ground zero of who he is, to the point that he won't consider any other job. When there's an opening at Paper Moon, the protagonist takes things into his own hands to get rid of his competition — literally.
Man-su is far from the only casualty of the unemployment crisis, as the movie delves into how men are expected to cling to their roles of providers and crumble under such pressure. Park frames Man-su's descending moral spiral with elegance, with No Other Choice ultimately leaving its resolution to its women.
A Machiavellian dramedy of snowballing events, this adaptation of the 1997 horror novel The Ax is Park at his most accessible and relatable, though some longtime lovers of the director may see this as a downside. The filmmaker began this passion project in 2009, working in the background to secure funding and assemble the right cast. As the economic downturn shows no signs of improvement 16 years later, the result is an ever-relevant, pitch-black divertissement that's a sharp takedown of capitalism and gender roles.
No Other Choice had its world premiere at Venice Film Festival