Austin Film Festival 2025 Review:
"No Other Choice"
How far would you go to gain an edge in an especially competitive job market? In No Other Choice, Lee Byung-hun’s papermaking company manager Yoo Man-su is willing to do whatever it takes to put food on the table—and to keep his dream house—after losing the job he loves so dearly. And that means resorting to figuratively and literally eliminating his rivals. A razor-sharp adaptation of the 1997 Donald Westlake novel The Ax, director Park Chan-wook’s decidedly 21st-century corporate satire examines the difficulties of finding employment at a time when job opportunities are scarce due to economic uncertainly and artificial intelligence’s transformation of the workforce. Man-su isn’t just motivated by the need to financially support his family—he feels an incredible sense of shame at being unemployment. Nothing less than returning to the papermaking industry will make Man-su feel whole again, even if it means taking a job below his skill level and at less money. But there are a handful of equally good candidates for an open position at the Moon Paper company. And Man-su slowly comes to believe that he will only get the job if he kills the applicants that stand in his way. With No Other Choice, Chan-wook and his screenwriters—including Canadian filmmaker Don McKellar—push Man-su beyond his limits as they probe and condemn current hiring practices that, among other flaws and barriers, rely too heavily on algorithms to search for and judge talent. Informed by a dark and scathing sense of humor, No Other Choice takes the dehumanization of the employment search to its most extreme. While the film obviously does not condone murder, it makes it clear that only way to beat a system decked against you is to cheat the system. The 2020s is not a time to play fair when it comes to finding a job. Fueled by indignity and desperation, Lee Byung-hun gives his white-collar, low-level manager an Everyman quality that makes Man-su easy to identify with, even if his actions are impossible to endorse. Anyone who has applied for a job in this post-COVID, A.I.-shifting era will sadly see themselves in Man-su as he must overcome one hurdle after against to secure a job worthy of his skills and experience. Man-su’s moral predicament extends to his loving but frustrated wife Mi-ri (an unflinching Son Ye-jin). Mi-ri undergoes an loyalty test that No Other Choice unfairly places on her, and her decision emphatically informs the film’s final act. Through Man-su’s struggles, and Mi-ri’s own actions, Chan-wook sees capitalism as the enemy of the worker, and the enemy is too strong to fight on its own terms. Gone are the days when there were jobs for life or pensions for long-service employeers. Now, more than ever, workers are viewed by employers as disposable and interchangeable. No Other Choice places Man-su in a no-win situation. And betraying one’s guiding principles is the price to pay to keep a roof over your head. Posted: Oct. 31, 2025. Web site: https://austinfilmfestival.com/ |
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