- Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-Jin, Park He-soon
- January 23rd 2026
- 139
- Park Chan-wook
Lee Byung-hun plays a paper factory employee who turns to dark, desperate measures to eradicate his competition after being made redundant.
South Korean actor Lee Byung-hun, who is best known to Western audiences as the Front Man in Squid Game, shows off a completely different side of himself in the dark comedy No Other Choice.
Park Chan-wook’s latest film, based on The Ax by Donald E. Westlake, follows Man-su, an award-winning employee who has been loyally working at the same papermaking company for 25 years.
After his company is bought out by Americans, Man-su and many other employees are let go, and they struggle to find new jobs in the paper industry as there are so few vacancies.
After working menial jobs for over a year, Man-su is at risk of losing his beloved house. Desperate to get a job at Moon Paper, he conjures up a plan to identify his main competition and get rid of them to ensure he gets the position.
However, Man-su is not a professional serial killer. He’s an amateur who doesn’t think it through and a coward who often chickens out, which makes his attempts pretty amusing.
The film’s standout sequence is Man-su’s first attempt as it is an absolute farce. So many things go wrong, it’s chaotic and messy, and it is paced and filmed perfectly. This comedy of errors is just brilliant.
Unfortunately, the other attempts fail to live up to the heights of the first. They are still well executed and amusing to a degree, but they are nowhere near as funny as the first and feel too dark to be considered truly comedic.
If you have only seen Byung-hun as the deceptive puppet master in Squid Game, then you will see a completely new side of him as the incompetent oaf.
He is so hilarious and absurd, particularly in moments where his character dances bizarrely and barks like a dog.
His two female supporting stars are the most entertaining – Son Ye-jin is smart and suspicious as his wife Mi-ri, while Yeom Hye-ran is delightfully odd as the wife of one of Man-su’s competitors.
No Other Choice is a solid dark comedy with a fantastic first half. It’s just a shame that Chan-wook could not maintain that high standard until the very end.
In cinemas from Friday 23rd January
By Hannah Wales
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