[Rating: Solid Rock Fist Up]
From experience in the last year, the job market and the search for a well paying steady job was damn near impossible. In fact, it still is as I try to get myself ready for the next few months of interview after interview. In my line of profession, they always say it’s good to know somebody.
The lengths that I have gone through have pretty much boiled down to this. But what if I was a man so desperate for a job, he’d have no other choice but to go to the extreme? South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s latest film No Other Choice answers this question in an energetic and shocking way.
Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has dedicated twenty five years to his paper making company. Think Michael Scott in The Office. His family life is perfect. His wife Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin) lives luxuriously and his children have everything they could want. When the paper company is sold, Man-su is let go. He vows he’ll find a job fast, even if the family has to cut back on spending and Mi-ri has to go to work part time at a dentist office. However, thirteen months later, Man-su works at a big box store with no hope of ever getting back to a company that suits his needs. He desperately wants into a new paper company that is striking it rich. However, this plan is thwarted when a social media influencer Choi Seon-chul (Park Hee-soon) embarrasses him as he begs for a job. This in part makes Man-su go to the limits of wanting to kill Seon-chul with a potted plan, setting in motion a deadly plot.
Man-Su comes up with an idea to create a fake paper company, and figure out which potential candidates would be ahead of him in the hiring process. Then, find those men and…kill them. One candidate, Goo Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min) is also unemployed, an alcoholic and has a very unfaithful and unhappy wife Lee A-ra (Yeom Hye-ran). Man-su goes to some hilarious lengths to try to reach his first potential competition. Another possible victim, Ko Si-jo (Cha Seung-won), also unemployed, is Man-su’s other competition to potential paper companies. Man-Su has to come to terms if he does have other choices than murder, or if this is the only choice.
What a complex choice of a decision Man-Su has! This was a dark comedy through and through with a lot of twists and turns that further complicated the choices Man-Su has to go through. Lee Byung-hun goes through a range of emotions in a short time with his first victim, that as a viewer I was rooting for him to get his job done, so he could get the job he wanted. This story is based on a book, The Ax by an American writer, and feels so much like a story that could be told by a Hollywood director, crafted so well by Park. I loved how connected I felt to this, as somebody who has faced unemployment (not the wanting to murder part, good lord!), and what I had to do to make sure I could afford to just keep going.
No Other Choice has a title that really sticks. Does Man-su have other choices to get a job, or does his zany idea of just killing the competition (to work in paper making) work?
For this reviewer, the film sticks to any and all landings in the tough corporate world. It smartly brings together comedy and tragedy of whatever it takes to reach the top.
Christian Ramos is a classic film fan, having had the dream to host Turner Classic Movies for years now. He also has a large amount of Oscar trivia in his head, remembers dressing as Groucho Marx one Halloween, and cherishes the moment Julianne Moore liked his tweet.
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