When Lee Byung-hun’s jobless papermaker, Man-su, attempts his first murder, it’s with an unconventional weapon: a plant pot. Ready to strike, its earthy liquid spews over his hair and face, forcing him to rethink this harebrained flowerpot fatality. It’s oh so impractical. 

Director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Decision To Leave) creates an unintentional metaphor here. This well-intentioned satire is deeply farcical. It’s a facet so delicate that, not unlike Man-su’s weapon of choice, holes emerge that start to leak. No Other Choice is so drenched in kookiness by the end that, ultimately, it’s a victim of its own weirdness. 

When Solar Paper is acquired by an American company, Man-su’s life is more or less over. Musk-style layoffs send him to support groups – ‘I’m a good person… It’s not my fault.’’ – as the family home is repossessed, food is rationed, and Netflix is canceled. 

His wife, Miri (an ace Son Ye-jin) holds the family together, despite  Man-su hatching a less than wise plan: set up a fake paper company to lure in job-seekers and, to increase his chances of employment, murder them.

It’s a winning concept for a movie. A ‘what-if’ scenario that draws you in with energy and verve. But such strong propellant isn’t sustainable. Mileage may vary here, but the latter half leaves one questioning the film’s ability to regulate itself. Chan-wook is caught, it seems, in the quicksand of slapstick. 

A palette cleanser comes in the form of Lee himself. As Front Man in Squid Game, Lee is a proven dramatic force, his natural, brooding intensity cleverly re-equipped here as a weapon of awkwardness. Man-su is like a desperate, petulant young’un fixated on his own victimhood, sharing cringey qualities with other out of work men; they are all rather pathetic. 

‘Losing your job isn’t the problem,’ a desperate wife tells her husband. ‘The problem is how you dealt with it.’ If the men of No Other Choice are prone to self pity, then its women are an example to fierce adaptability. Miri is an old-school, roll-up-your-sleeves problem solver, a refreshing model of resilience. Compared to her man’s king-sized pity party, she just gets on with it, keeping the family afloat and providing an overly askew film some solidity. 

As a cartoonish study of male self-absorption, Chan-wook’s comedy isn’t without its charm. Unorthodox murder scenes have an inventive spark that stirs true laughter early on, and it’s a joy to witness cinematographer Kim Woo-hyung breathe new life into cross-dissolves – think Alien: Earth. But unfortunately, Mr. Bean does spring to mind when parody is amplified to the max, and the urge to hum ‘Yakety Sax’ from The Benny Hill Show a bit too tempting at times.

In cinemas nationwide from Fri 23 2026