No Other Choice (Eojjeolsuga eobsda) is a highly entertaining film…if you don’t mind rooting for a protagonist who is trying to get away with murdering innocent people.
Directed by Park Chan-wook, No Other Choice stars Lee Byung-hun as Mansu, whose life is going as well as he has ever hoped for. He works as a manager at a paper factory. He is respected by the other employees and by the factory owners. His success has allowed him to buy back the family home he grew up in. He lives there with his wife, their son and his wife’s daughter by a previous marriage, who happens to be a cello prodigy. He even gets to tend the garden he grew up playing in as a child.
But then his life takes an unexpected bad turn. A U.S. company buys the paper factory and begins firing people. Because Mansu speaks up on behalf of the regular workers and urges them to band together as a union against the Americans, the Americans fire him too.
Mansu’s world collapses. No more family tennis lessons, no more dance lessons, cut back on all expenses and, worst of all, he may have to sell his beloved house.
But what if Mansu can get a job as the manager of a different paper factory? If he could just get rid of the current manager and two candidates who may be more qualified than he is….
If you’ve seen the classic Alec Guiness film Kind Hearts and Coronets, you know where this one is going. But Mansu has a problem, he feels sympathy for the men he wants to kill. He faces the dilemma of choosing between his conscience or doing what will best help his family finances. Unfortunately, from a moral point-of-view, when his wife and son figure out what Mansu is up to, they support him.
One of Park Chan-wook’s previous films, Decision to Leave, was South Korea’s entry to the Academy Awards in 2022, but he is best known for his 2003 film Oldboy.
