What a chance to start my 2026 cinephile year with a film like ‘Eojjeoluga eobsda‘ (the English distribution title is ‘No Other Choice‘) by the Korean master Park Chan-wook. I found in this film the mixture of thriller and horror as well as the subtlety and depth of the psychology of the characters, which are characteristic of his most successful films, but in this film his ambitions seem to be greater. The Korean director adds a political dimension to the cinematic adaptation of the 1997 novel ‘The Axe’ by American writer Donald E. Westlake. The result is impressive in many moments.
The film begins with a scene from the life of a family that is obviously too happy for misfortune not to strike them soon. Indeed, in the next scene, we learn that the father of the family, Man-su, a specialist at a paper manufacturing factory, is fired. The paper industry is in crisis, less is being written, printed and read, automation is reducing the number of jobs. Man-su sees not only his career cut short after 25 years of devoted work, but also his role as the family breadwinner called into question. Miri, his beautiful and devoted wife, tries to cut down on household expenses, takes a job as a dental technician, cancels the more expensive cello lessons of their very talented daughter and even renounces to the two gorgeous family dogs. When the very house they live in is in danger of being lost, Man-su decides that he must pass to action. As specialist positions in the paper industry are becoming fewer and fewer, the chances of employment can only increase if the competition is eliminated. The road to murder is not easy either.
The screenwriters build a complex plot – perhaps even a little too complex – but perfectly psychologically justified. In parallel with the thriller intrigue and the horror scenes of unapologetic violence, we also follow the way the relationship between the two spouses evolves. Actors Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin are wonderfully chosen, as is the entire team around them. Each of the film’s characters has a justification within the system, for actions that cannot be qualified as anything other than reprehensible. Both the new bosses who fire workers or engineers made ‘redundant’ by technological progress, and the laid-off employees forced to resort to violence or even murder to regain their place in society, as well as the wife who becomes an accomplice to her husband’s actions out of love, can claim at one point or another that that had ‘no other choice’. In this case, is the system to blame? As a message, this film resembles Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’, which 90 years ago sounded similar alarm bells and accused industrial mechanization of crushing the heroes’ personalities. Here too we have an anthological final scene, a kind of happy ending with a reconciliation between the hero and the heroine, but what a difference! Charlot will live happily with his Gamin, protected by his own innocence. Man-su and Miri will share the secrets and complicity of the deeds that regained their well-being. At many moments, the style of narration and direction of Park Chan-wook reminded me of the films of the Coen brothers or of Tarantino. I can only hope that the inevitable American remake will be directed by someone like them.