Director/co-writer Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) has made a fascinating thriller/drama that combines various genres with devastating results in No Other Choice, a convoluted exercise in auteur cinema.
Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) is a manager at a paper plant leading an idyllic life with a loving wife and two children. When he is laid off after a corporate merger and must scramble to pay his bills and mortgage, he is faced with the possibility of an uncertain future. Desperate and at his wits’ end, Yoo centers on a possible job opening at another paper plant, but with other candidates vying for his precious job, he decides to eliminate his competition. With each targeted executive, the situation gets more precarious and outrageous, and when the police begin questioning and his wife suspects something is wrong, what will he do?
The film asks, “What lengths will a man go to ensure his family’s well-being?” There are Hitchcockian influences in Chan-wook’s ability to make his audience complicit in a crime with a morbid sense of humor. The film borders on dark satire with Yoo’s bumbling attempts to commit murder which alternate from suspense to perverse comedy. And yet the audience follows and even watches with a guilty fascination at his horrible plans, on the one hand hoping he can be successful and still feeling a sense of revulsion before, during and after a murder. Byung-hun is triumphant in a challenging role, displaying a distressed husband and father who will stop at nothing to protect his family despite his ineptitude.
Shot with stunning
imagery, those who
are new to Chan-wook will find a master filmmaker spinning a tale about
questionable morals that entertains and questions at the same time. (The film works even in Korean with English
subtitles.)
****1/2
of ***** stars
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