Interview With Director Park Chan-wook About “No Other Choice”

No Other Choice is a 2025 South Korean dark satire comedy-thriller directed by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Decision To Leave), based on Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Ax.

The film follow Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), a middle-aged paper mill manager who ostensibly has it all. He is an award-winning veteran employee of papermaking company Solar Paper. Well-paid, he has purchased his childhood home, living happily in luxury with his homemaker wife Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), his teenage stepson Si-one (Woo Seung Kim), their young daughter Ri-one (So Yul Choi), an antisocial neurodivergent cello prodigy, and their two friendly dogs.

Man-Su  is suddenly laid off after 25 years of loyal service when an American company Moon Paper takes over his company and introduces AL and automation to cut operating costs. Desperate to maintain his family’s lifestyle and secure a new job in the paper industry, Man-su decides to eliminate his job competitors by murdering the top candidates who stand between him and a position at the new company. The film is a satirical exploration of corporate downsizing and the psychological toll of protracted unemployment. The movie blends dark humor with a sharp critique of modern capitalism.

Park Chan-wook spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about turning this darkly funny and tragic novel into a hugely entertaining film.

Grading The Candidates

When discussing the elements of the original novel that captivated him, Chan-wook identifies two key themes that transferred into No Other Choice.

The first is how a wronged laborer — abandoned by his company — responds to his situation in a manner reflective of the very institution that exploited him. The second is Man-su’s loss of identity and confidence along with his job. “He grapples with this newfound reality and, through a desperate act of murder, he inadvertently regains a sense of self,” Chan-wook matter-of-factly quips.

Park Chan-wook

Man-su devises an elaborate system to rank the candidates in order to decide who will become his next hit. He’s acutely aware that there isn’t any guarantee of him winning his old job back. Since job interviews are a numbers game, he hopes his actions will tilt the employment odds in his favor.

Park Chan-wook put a lot of effort into devising his grading system – A, B, C, D, A+, and A-. A lot more detail is given in the film compared to the book. There are bonus points for higher qualifications and special skills. “For instance, you would get bonus points for having a Ph.D. or proficiency in the Japanese language.” The last stage of the process was to compare himself to other candidates, reasoning that he can still win on his own merits while putting his thumb on the scaled.

Man-su isn’t overly greedy or competitive. He understands the gravity of his actions, but it’s only until he’s hired.

“You don’t just kill a man, because it isn’t going to solve anything. You do it because the industry is in such a difficult place. There’s going to be a lot of unemployed men who are going to apply for the job, ” Chan-wook explains. “I tried to portray that process in great detail, a lot more than they did in the novel,” he continues.

But Man-su needs insider information to screen the candidates and put the best one forward. “He’s trying to brainstorm how he finds the targets. He realizes that he has to become a company himself to collect these resumes and find that out,” the filmmaker notes.

In one an act of irony, Man-su ranks his own resume in second place. “We see his smile of great satisfaction. The satisfaction could be from the fact that he realizes how valuable he is as a candidate, or he might feel a sense of pride when he compares himself to other people.” It’s also one less person to kill if he wins the job.

Getting To Know The Candidates

Man-su isn’t a straight up hitman. He gets to know his victims first.

“Each murder is an effort to get a job, but at the same time, it’s an effort to climb up the ladder. Another thing I tried to prioritize in the film is the relationship between Man-su and his targets. Because, when looking at his targets, it almost feels like he’s looking into a mirror. Each victim is almost a double of Man-su in different ways,” Park Chan-wook states.

Man-su is a product of his upbringing. You go to university, you get a stable job and take care of the family. Despite how much the audience empathises with him, he’s still a serial killer – a killer with a conscience.

This aspect of the story is more pronounced in the film because every step Man-su takes the career ladder is a step down on the morality ladder. “Man-su is both the attacker and the victim. He’s the one who has to be respected, he’s the one who has to have authority,” Chan-wook says. His morality is becoming debased because he doesn’t know how to cope in the circmstance.

“Man-su is someone who grew up stuck in a box of societal standards of how a father and a husband should behave. He should always make a living for his family and protect them,” Park ponders. He’s cratered under his financial burden.

“In that sense, he’s the victim. He’s a criminal who can’t be forgiven for not having the spirit of a serial killer.”

The filmmaker deviated from the book by allowing Man-su’s wife and children to have a more prominent role in the movie.

Miri (Son-Ye Jin) and Ri-One (So Yul Choi). Photo courtesy of NEON

Sacred Work

Depite climing the career ladder, Man-su doesn’t consider paper making to be a noble profession. His primary goal is that of the family provider. Many people don’t consider making paper to be sacred work. Ironically, the director believes that many people don’t consider making films to be sacred work either.

No Other Choice reflects Chan-wook’s life experiences  in the difficulties of getting his films made. “I think making a film is similar to that. I would say I related to the story in that making paper isn’t something that a lot of people consider a sacred work. And I felt that it was also very similar to the act of making movies.”

“I think as a filmmaker, regardless of what other people think, you risk your entire life for films and you consider your life meaningless without film, which I thought was very similar to how the characters in the story treated the work of making paper.”

The delicate balance between the audience empathizing with him and believing his statement that there was no other choice and between the audience critically judging him for what he has done was a delicate tightrope for the filmmaker to walk.

No Other Choice offers a compelling message to both worker and executive alike. Park Chan-wook points to a line of dialogue in the film that resonates most highly with him.

“I would say the line that Miri says to Man-su, which is you shouldn’t have lived that hard.” Not all the hard work and loyaltyyou put in over the years  is rewarded. “It’s not a financial reward. It’s a spiritual fulfillment kind of a reward.”

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.