No Other Choice (15)

(Subtitled)

Master filmmaker Park Chan-wook returns with another delicious slice of nation satire, as Lee Byung-hun plots to bump off the competition.

Byung-hun is family man You Man-su, who lives in a gorgeous home with his wife Miri (Son Ye-jin), their children Si-One and Ri-One, and two beautiful dogs. Man-su is devastated after being laid off from his paper company management role after 25 years, and despite assurances from his wife he’ll find a new job soon, 13 months later he’s stacking boxes in a warehouse.

After a series of calamities, with house foreclosure pending, Man-su becomes truly desperate, and after becoming mildly obsessed with the cool middle manager at Moon Paper, realises the job market is simply too competitive. Wouldn’t it be easier if, let’s say, he thinned out the herd? Yet Man-su isn’t as cut-throat as he fancies himself, and his murder plot isn’t particularly thought out.

Parallels to Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite are understandable, but this easy comparison undermines the specificity of both films. While the two directors are peers with shared interests, and there is undoubtedly some common DNA, No Other Choice boldly confronts erasure of our humanity as we’re homogenised by capitalism.