In Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax, an American paper factory employee fears that he could be replaced by a cheaper worker from Asia. In Park Chan-wook’s 2025 adaptation of The Ax, which he’s renamed No Other Choice, the head of a Korean paper manufacturer threatens to use AI to shred its workforce. Regardless of the country and decade, then, the message is clear: no one’s job is safe under capitalism.
“Man-su goes through a lot to eliminate his human competitors,” Park tells me through an interpreter in Rosewood Hotel during the London Film Festival. “But he ends up meeting an even scarier competitor – AI-managed automation.”
Park, the 62-year-old Korean auteur behind Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave, has been developing No Other Choice for almost two decades. The project, which was once set in America, stars Lee Byung-hun (the Front Man in Squid Game, and the voice of Gwi-Ma in KPop Demon Hunters) as Man-su, a sacked middle manager who, like a paper clip, stubbornly clings to a dying industry. With few jobs available to him, Man-su decides to kill off his rivals one by one. Whereas Park depicted skilled assassins in his “Vengeance trilogy”, Man-su is a sweaty, clumsy antihero – he’s more “old boy” than Oldboy.
“What I find interesting about the film is that it’s not a revenge story,” says Lee in a separate interview, also through an interpreter. “The people Man-su is trying to eradicate, he has no relationship to them. He doesn’t know them. He might feel empathy towards them, but unfortunately he has to eradicate them. The audience might cheer on Man-su but, at some point, they might abandon him.”
Lee, a 55-year-old Korean actor, first came to prominence as the lead of Park’s 2000 thriller Joint Security Area. Around 15 years ago, Park told him about No Other Choice. “If Director Park had offered me the film then, I would have done it,” says Lee. “However, I wonder: would I have had enough experience, wisdom, and maturity back then to portray the emotions I can portray now?” The role of Man-su required those extra 15 years of maturity? “Absolutely. The passing of time is the biggest weapon for an actor.”
As usual, Park shoots No Other Choice with ravishing verve and ingenuity, often discovering shots that feel like they’ve never been attempted in a movie before. Even simple actions are excuses for elegant cinematography: drinks are downed from the POV of a shot glass; Man-su digging a grave is overlaid with a glimpse of his wife, Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), sleeping in bed, making it look as if he’s burying her body.
In a way, that’s the key image of No Other Choice: while the logline alludes to a crazed serial killer chasing after his dream job, the film is ultimately a satire about outdated gender roles. Man-su could, at any point, ask his wife for help; instead, he wrecks his family’s livelihood as he believes the father should be a household’s main provider.
“In this patriarchal society, Man-su considers himself not a proper man,” says Park. “After losing his job, he believes he’s also lost his authority as a father. But after committing two murders, he regains his confidence. Even though he’s horrified by what he’s done, he ironically feels like a man again.”
Man-su goes through a lot to eliminate his human competitors. But he ends up meeting an even scarier competitor – AI-managed automation
While No Other Choice is hilarious – one sequence involving a decibel-heavy death is the funniest five minutes of any film in the past year – Park also applies nuance to the drama. For example, No Other Choice has fewer murders than Westlake’s book and Costa-Gavras’s French-language movie adaptation from 2005. Park also fleshes out Mi-ri’s character: in the novel, she’s a cinema worker; in No Other Choice, she’s a dentist’s assistant whose career ambitions are paralleled by Man-su’s increasing toothache.
“It’s to portray Man-su’s stubbornness,” Park explains. “He tells himself that he’ll be able to find a job within three months, and then he’ll deserve expensive treatment from a dentist. The fact that his wife has a job at a dentist’s office, it offers an easy solution for the toothache, but it harms his self-esteem as a man. The dentist offers to fix his teeth for free, but he turns down the offer because he considers the dentist to be a competitor.”
A frequent gag, then, is Man-su cradling his mouth out of pain. Through amateurish assassinations (he uses oven mitts to silence a gun) and his gardening obsession (the underlying punchline is that he should work in horticulture, not paper), Man-su delivers physical pratfalls with a deadpan facial expression. While Lee’s stare is unnerving in Squid Game, it’s uproarious and humanising in No Other Choice.
“When we were at the Venice Film Festival, critics mentioned that the film was a slapstick comedy,” says Lee. “Until then, I didn’t realise that’s what I was doing. I thought I was just being faithful to the script. None of the body movements were calculated to be funny. But then a journalist wrote that it’s reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. I thought: wow, there’s the moustache, and the last scene with Man-su wandering around the factory like a lost soul.”
Lee returns to that final image when the conversation turns to what actors and paper factory workers have in common: a fear of AI. “He’s walking out of the factory in this crestfallen way, and behind him the AI is shutting off the lights one by one,” says Lee. “It’s as if he’s being chased by this new technology, where he’s lost everything.”
Park wrote the script in English with Don McKellar, and then in Korean with Lee Kyoung-mi and Lee Ja-hye. When relocating the story from America to Korea, the director made minor alterations to the existing draft, like the fancy-dress party (“it was initially American history-themed, with people dressed as Lincoln, Jefferson, and Pocahontas”) and Man-su’s obsession with bonsai plants. “When Man-su is filled with jealousy, he breaks a bonsai branch. When he ties up a dead body with wires, it’s like a bonsai plant.”
Man-su thinks autumn will represent a time of harvest where he can finally reap the fruits of his labour. He finds out it’s the season where leaves begin to fall
For the past decade, Park has also been trying to make The Brigands of Rattlecreek, a violent western based on an infamous spec script by S. Craig Zahler called The Brigands of Rattleborge. Zahler’s screenplay is full of long, drawn-out scenes, all designed to be directed like Dragged Across Concrete. Surely this is the opposite of Park’s ostentatious style?
“I’ve changed it a lot, so that it’s not a slow or still movie anymore,” says Park. “It’s going to be very much a dynamic film.” If it’s so hard to finance, could he relocate the story? “It’s a western, so I have no plans to make it into a Korean film. It’s stalled right now as an American film. However, like No Other Choice, I’m hopeful that Brigands can ultimately be made as well.”
After all, Park’s films are so detailed, you can sense the years and years of planning in each shot. My final question to the director is about Man-su’s garden, which prompts an 11-minute answer that he only ends because I’ve vastly overrun my time slot. Park explains in detail the thought process behind Man-su’s greenhouse, the gecko tree behind a murder victim’s house, and how plants symbolise the passing of time. “Man-su thinks autumn will represent a time of harvest where he can finally reap the fruits of his labour. He finds out it’s the season where leaves begin to fall.”
Ultimately, what’s key to understanding No Other Choice is the revelation that Man-su’s father buried alive pigs near the garden, and hung himself in the house’s storage room. “Man-su’s house is built atop this tragedy,” says Park. “He grows plants where these animals were brutally killed. He planned to foster happiness in this place. Instead, he meets the tragic fate of becoming a serial killer.”
No Other Choice is in UK cinemas on January 23
