The perfect family dissolves into a fade that takes us to a machine spinning at full speed. With that simple yet powerful transition, Park Chan-wook delivers an absolute omen. In No Other Choice (2025), just a few minutes into the first act are enough for the idyllic life of a family to collapse into complete chaos. Man-soo (Lee Byung-hun) has dedicated his entire life to a company, but in the blink of an eye, he loses his job, and with it, misfortune begins to seep into every corner of his life.

The veteran Korean director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker, Decision to Leave) once again transports us into his universe. With the narrative sharpness and impeccable aesthetics that define him, he brings to the screen another work loaded with social critique, dark humor, drama, and intrigue. No Other Choice may not be as visceral as some of his earlier works, like Oldboy (2003) or Lady Vengeance (2005), but it carries the same force to strike through its discourse and its magnificent script. It seems the director has entered a stage in his career where he has decided to refine his mastery of cinematic language to the fullest. We think of The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022) as the direct precedents to this film and imagine the possibility of a new trilogy within his body of work.

No Other Choice

As is often the case in Park Chan-wook’s cinema, at the heart of No Other Choice lies a character faced with a moral dilemma, while the subtext reveals a sharp social critique. Satire and dark humor are once again his vehicles of choice to examine the corporate dynamics of the modern world. The destructive practices of mega-corporations, job instability, and the inhuman competition in the race for a position—all these elements unfold in a story with an overwhelming rhythm that corners the protagonist, forcing him to make an irrational decision.

No Other Choice compels us to confront, alongside its protagonist, his ethical dilemmas and the decisions he makes, pulling us deep into an emotional level of engagement. The music, combined with the majestic production design, elevates the film to a superior plane and turns the viewing into a true cinematic experience. We are immersed in the world of Man-soo and his family, sensing that they could be characters in a stage play, that everything is too absurd to be real, but what is truly unsettling is realizing that reality is far more savage than this fiction.

Park Chan-wook shines once again and reaffirms why he is a master of the cinematic craft. With No Other Choice, he delivers a story that serves both as a mirror and a metaphor for the modern world, resonating on multiple levels. He confronts us with the notion that when everything falls apart, anyone can be driven to the unthinkable because perhaps, in the end, there is no other choice.