No Other Choice (2025) | REVIEW

Lee Byung-hun, as Man-su, considering dropping a potted plant of red peppers onto a competitor on the job market in NO OTHER CHOICE — PHOTO: NEON / CJ Entertainment (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Park Chan-wook — Screenplay by Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Lee Ja-hye.

Whenever a new film from South Korean master filmmaker Park Chan-wook comes out, it flies right to the top of my watchlist. Every film of his that I have seen thus far, like his iconic, violent, and shocking Vengeance Trilogy or his phenomenal erotic historical thriller The Handmaiden, has wowed me. Just a few years ago, he released yet another masterpiece with the incredibly rewatchable crime-romance thriller Decision to Leave, whose style showcased Park at his very best and cemented him as one of the world’s best visual storytellers. His latest film, No Other Choice, an adaptation of Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax (which was previously adapted in the mid-2000s by Costa-Gavras, to whom Park’s film is dedicated), is yet another fantastic example of Park’s strengths.

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