We face the uncertain future with a helpless irony, knowing the problems but remaining powerless in face of overwhelming change. We respond with despair, outcry, and cynical humor, but it all seems to disappear into the wind. Automation, radical politics, runaway capitalism: forces that are clear as day seem forever untouchable. 

Too often this fear forces us to turn on each other, to blame other victims because they are tangible, accessible. We can see them with our own eyes. 

“No Other Choice” is South Korean director Park Chan wook’s response to the 21st century’s scourge of complacency, where one man takes the job application process into his own hands, systematically killing the competing candidates until he is the last man standing. 

Based on the 1997 novel “The Ax” by Donald E. Westlake, “No Other Choice” balances its dark subject matter with wry amusement in a brilliant showcase of dark comedy that proves the genre’s power to engage and provoke thought.

Lee Byung-hun stars as Yoo Man-su, the ex-middle manager at a paper company, in a sterling performance that effortlessly pairs the timid determination of a reluctant killer with a hilariously bumbling physicality. A family man with a secret, Byung-hun’s performance starts out endearing and ends cold and distant, as Man-su gets bolder and more dead-eyed with each killing blow.

The first two acts are filled with depressing scenes lightened by consistent bursts of humor, framing painful situations like a mass firing or a shootout between a wife and husband with a ridiculous sense of serendipity. Comical scenarios fall dysfunctionally into place or spiral into chaotic absurdity, a malfunctioning Rube Goldberg machine of slapstick violence. 

Humor veils the horror, until the jokes are slowly sapped from the screen and the last act marches on in resigned determination. 

No piece of dialogue is wasted, and seemingly ordinary lines have double or triple meanings, filling the film with callbacks and revelations that enrich the characters and reward a rewatch. 

The title itself serves as a delusional rationalization for misguided actions throughout the film. The Americans who fired Man-su had “no other choice” but to automate the paper factory, his other candidates had “no other choice” but to stay tunnel-visioned into their original field, and Man-su “no other choice” but to murder the other candidates in an effort to find employment.

It’s the mantra of capitalism, forcing its victims to believe they must compete for a basic shred of dignity, because if they don’t, they will be left in the dust.

These themes are reinforced by the incredible sound design, a masterwork of its own. Every moment is punctuated with a burst of strings or tactful stings from the environment, as diegetic sound weaves in and out of the soundtrack, blurring the lines between the characters inner world and their surroundings. 

The cinematography is equally as masterful, generous in the gratuitous close ups, metaphorical transitions, cut aways, and allegorical shots that last for fractions of a second, but clearly took hours of planning and careful execution: Jagged rocks jutting out from the edge of a highway, splitting the screen into a diptych of frothy green seawater and the painted maroon of rain-slicked asphalt; A beer, fixed to the center of the screen, causing the world to whirl and spin while the drink remains perfectly framed, its contents draining into Man-su’s open mouth as his schemes “force” him to give up years of sobriety. 

Park Chan wook uses the full capabilities of the cinematic arts, pushing the boundaries of what modern film is capable of, with daring choices bordering on the experimental, yet never distracting from the momentum of the narrative. 

Parallels throughout the film are intentional and salient. After being fired, his life spiraling out of control, Man-su struggles to contort an unruly bonsai into place, strangling it with gardening wire until it snaps under pressure. Then, after a few violent encounters, he fails to dismember a body for easy burial, instead using the wire to tightly bind the corpse into a hauntingly neat package, one of many unsettling images in the film treated with deadpan pragmatism. 

Each candidate Man-su confronts (and usually murders) is a warped reflection of himself, a pitiful assembly of men who have lost their pride, or everything but. They expose his strengths and flaws, whether paranoia about infidelity, alcoholism, or his willingness to sacrifice for his family. Their similarities make each climactic moment more painful and personal, symbolic killings as well as literal.

At the core of “No Other Choice” is a fearful depiction of the rapidly approaching future, where cost cutting and automation leaves no room for the humans who have been replaced. The final images of the film are ones of rampant mechanization: loud, emotionless machines carrying out tasks that used to feed and house families. In the end, Man-su emerges victorious, each murder conveniently overlooked by law enforcement. His reward is to oversee a factory just like the one he used to work in, except completely alone, staffed by robots who work in the dark, without the need to sleep, eat or see.

“No Other Choice” is a deceptive masterpiece, using humor as a trojan horse for its outcry against automation and the soul-sucking process of the modern day job search. It shows that as we are swept up in the tide of technology we will fight, sabotage, and even kill each other to stay afloat. Because, after all, we have no other choice.