No Other Choice

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Overall, the movie was okay. Very slow like other Korean films. Watch the film and enjoy it for what it is. You can think about the message after.

I Can't Help It—A Eulogy for the Displaced251227 (3.1)"A eulogy for those of us who have no ground left to bury the 'inevitable' ugliness of our lives." The film delivers a biting satire on the cruelty of capital and competition, yet the mise-en-scène is almost too lush, making the grim message a bit heavy to digest. Whether viewed through a literary lens of loose tension or a cartoonish lens of exaggerated climaxes, there is a strange sense of displacement—it feels like a Korea that isn't Korea, a modern era that isn't quite modern. It is a world where the dignity of labor is discarded in a desperate bid for **** story follows Man-su, a dedicated paper mill worker of 25 years who turns into a cold-blooded strategist after losing his job to a US acquisition. To reclaim his middle-class life and the mansion he grew up in, he orchestrates a lethal "recruitment process," eliminating his competition one by one. His descent from an accidental killer to a meticulous simulator of crime mirrors the loss of his own humanity. By the time he secures a management position in a dark, AI-driven factory where human presence is merely a hindrance to productivity, he has buried his conscience under the same soil as his victims. Supported by a family that chooses to become accomplices rather than lose their status, Man-su’s "happy ending" is a chilling testament to a society where we justify any atrocity with the phrase, "I couldn't help it."

Some laughs and quite om entertaining to begin with. As the plot progresses though it gets more and obvious that the main character is a man that cares for no one but himself (and perhaps his family). He also proofs himself to capable of extreme cruelty against others simply because he has an absurd obsession with the idea that they are in his way. If you find such events entertaining this might be a film in your taste. For me I need to feel identification, sympathy or interest in some character in a film to get involved in the events on the screen. Cruel idiots just isn't my cup of tea, neither in real life nor on film.

They say that “Imitation is the highest form of flattery,” and, arguably, that might be true – but only when the imitation works. When it doesn’t, the result is more of a pale wannabe clone, and that’s precisely the problem with this latest release from writer-director Park Chan-wook. This dark comedy essentially seeks to be this year’s equivalent to the Oscar-winning South Korean offering “Parasite” (“Gisaengchung”) (2019) from filmmaker Bong Joon-ho. But, try as it might, “No Other Choice” is no “Parasite” – not by a long shot. The edgy humor that made this film’s predecessor successful was grounded in its skillful handling, knowing just how far to push the bounds of propriety and absurdity without going overboard while still being able to evoke nervous but genuinely earned laughs from viewers. This picture, however, tries way too hard to produce those chuckles, sometimes crossing the line of appropriateness and landing in territory that falls flat, becomes excessive and sometimes even verges on being of questionable taste. These results emerge from a storyline in which Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), a South Korean paper mill manager who genuinely believes he’s attained all of the material, domestic and career satisfaction he could ever want, unexpectedly loses his job as a result of an American company buyout. Upset but undeterred, he vows to land a new job within a few months, but, much to his dismay, he’s still out of work long thereafter. He and his family reluctantly begin economizing, but Man-su is dissatisfied with the direction in which his life is heading. He thus decides to try a different approach to winning a managerial job that’s opened up at another paper company – by eliminating his competitors before they can be hired. On the surface, this deliciously wicked premise might seem like a viable plot for a sinister dark comedy, but that’s not the issue here – rather, it’s a question of (ahem) execution. To move the narrative forward, the picture relies on heavy-handed storytelling tactics that result in overwrought slapstick, dubious comedy bits (some of which aren’t even laughing matters) or material that just flat-out bombs. In addition, the story is woefully bogged down by extraneous subplots involving erroneously suspected infidelity, youthful antisocial behavior and alcohol-induced lapses in sobriety (what’s funny about any of that?). As a consequence, these ancillary story threads needlessly lengthen an already-overlong film, prompting viewers to want to yell at the screen to get on with it already. What’s perhaps most puzzling, however, is the protagonist’s single-mindedness about the need to land another job in paper manufacturing, regularly proclaiming that he has “no other choice.” Why? It’s an argument that’s made repeatedly but never adequately explained, a plot device that, in turn, causes the film to become repetitive, making this production seem even longer than it actually is (I can’t begin to say how often I looked at my watch while screening this one). These attributes also make me wonder how this release was able to earn two Critics Choice Award nominations, three Golden Globe Award nods, and accolades from numerous film festivals and critics’ organizations, given that this is one of the biggest disappointments of this year’s awards season. Indeed, I find it amusing that the protagonist routinely insists that he has no other choice about the options open to him, but, thankfully, we as viewers do have a choice when it comes to this film – by simply choosing to turn it off, a temptation I had to resist many times and almost wish I had.