No Other Choice, the latest film from acclaimed Oldboy director Park Chan-wook, has earned a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes and is now officially certified fresh.
This marks Park’s first feature since 2022’s Decision to Leave, and the film has been met with widespread critical acclaim since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in August.
The movie stars Squid Game actor Lee Byung-hun known for his role as the Front Man in the Netflix hit, as Man-su, a long-time employee at a paper company who is suddenly laid off. After a humiliating rejection during a job interview at a rival firm, Man-su embarks on a darkly comic and violent mission to eliminate his competition. The result combines Park’s signature visual flair and bloody vengeance style with biting black comedy and sharp social satire.
Critics have praised No Other Choice for balancing humor, brutality, and humanity. The BBC called it “not just Park’s funniest film, but his most humane, too – and that’s quite something for a comedy as violent as this one.” Variety described it as “the latest exhibit in the mounting body of evidence suggesting Park Chan-wook may be the most elegant filmmaker alive.”
According to Screen Daily, “The film is extremely amusing, certainly, but it’s simultaneously a poignant study of the desperation of the long-term jobless and the needless cruelty of the corporate world.” IndieWire added that it’s “the rare film that feels sympathetic toward its protagonist without ever rooting for him, and Lee’s elastic performance as Man-su is key to the balancing act of Park’s tragicomic tone.”
No Other Choice was released in South Korean theaters in September, though an international release date has yet to be announced.
Source: Gamesradar
