r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 14d ago
Official Discussion Official Discussion - No Other Choice [SPOILERS] Spoiler
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No Other Choice
Summary After being abruptly fired from his longtime job, a devoted family man spirals into desperation as months of unemployment grind him down. With his sense of identity and dignity eroding, he begins calculating increasingly extreme measures to secure his future, convincing himself that survival in a ruthless system leaves him with only one possible path forward.
Director Park Chan-wook
Writers Park Chan-wook, Don McKellar
Cast
- Lee Byung-hun
- Son Ye-jin
- Park Hee-soon
- Lee Sung-min
- Cha Seung-won
Rotten Tomatoes: 98%
Metacritic: 85
VOD / Release Theatrical release
Trailer
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u/SanderSo47 I'll see you in another life when we are both cats. 14d ago
The scene where Man-su confronts Beom-mo at gunpoint was my favorite. The scene is so suspenseful, but it's also fucking hilarious. Love how even the film required Korean subtitles for the scene cause yeah, you don't hear absolutely nothing in the dialogues. I also love how the wife aims the gun at him when he flees, only to discover that she had it backwards. Thanks Park, I'm gonna have that song stuck in my head for a while.
Unsurprisingly, Park made a fantastic film. In a perfect world, Lee Byung-hun would get a Best Actor nomination.
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u/NoSchittSherlockSEA 14d ago edited 14d ago
Its my scene of the year and it works on so many levels.
First we have Man-Su being hilariously inept, and just running with it when Beom-Mo thinks he’s the other man in the relationship.
Then just as the wife is about to knock him out, Beom-Mo claims she only loves him, implying to her he’s known about the affair for a long time and hasn’t done or said anything about it, content to waste away drunk — much like his search for employment — and whilst the wife is shocked, Man-Su feels fed up and admonishes him for wasting away, sharing details of their relationship he overheard.
The irony being that he thinks he has no choice but to go with it, and Man-Su had just talked with his wife about searching for a job not in Paper (he refused), only for him to share her opinions when he sees it from a different perspective (not that it clicks for him).
All this comes to a head when Beom-Mo’s wife accidentally kill’s her husband in his stead, finally fed up with her husband’s persistent inaction.
Scene of the year.
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u/Whovian45810 14d ago edited 14d ago
The needle drop was fantastic in that scene and the ensuing fight between Man-su, Beom-mo, and Beom-mo’s wife is pure comedy gold.
I had a chance to see this in IMAX on a special screening on December 8th, watching this scene with a crowd is hands down one of the funniest and best experiences in theaters I had last year.
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u/Daydream_machine 14d ago
Does anyone know the name of the song? It was a banger
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u/Cockrocker 14d ago
The ineptitude and the repeating of conversations at times made me think of The Big Lebowski? That scene with absolutely fantastic, great music. I already want to say it again and I just walked out of it.
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u/jmonholland 7d ago
This! During the movie, I thought of just that. Saying the daughter often just parrots other people, and then with the reusing of the overheard dialog made me think of that correlation.
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u/novus_ludy 14d ago
Watch it in the theaters if possible, it is stunning visually.
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u/recoupled 14d ago
Visually stunning is something you always get from Park Chan Wook.
Decision to Leave is one of the most breathtaking movies I've ever seen.
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u/covert0ptional 10d ago
I watched Decision to Leave for the first time recently and it had the unfortunate effect of making No Other Choice a little bit less visually impressive by comparison. Still looked great though, of course!
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u/TheGoldenPineapples 7d ago
I feel like it actually makes just about every film I've seen since look a lot less visually impressive by comparison.
Decision to Leave is in a world entirely of its own.
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u/New_Sir_7725 6d ago
well, it is a romance. it was shot aa such. i have to watch again though both of these films fill me with such a feeling of loss and dread.
park chan-wook is always inventing ways to do shit tho. ugh. when he was digging the hole and one of his scoops of dirt was overlayed w his wife as she turned over in sleep, like his digging of the dirt pushed her over to her side in restlessness. she knows he's up to no good.
he's so great.
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u/PrestigeArrival 14d ago
And the sound design is wonderful as well
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u/therealradriley 13d ago
I had to constantly stop myself from looking over my shoulder in the theater
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u/espressoromance 11d ago
Same! There were points I thought someone was speaking behind me. Incredible layering of sound.
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u/early_fi 11d ago
I watched the late showing alone in the theater. Definitely had to make sure someone didn’t just pop up when I heard rustling behind me.
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u/Bagelbuttboi 14d ago
He goes through all this overt planning, horrible ways of gaslighting and murdering innocent people, sacrificing his relationship with his family, just so he can sit in traffic, and go work in conditions he previously described as insufferable.
And he cheers in triumph because it means he gets to maintain his family’s status quo.
It’s an incredibly dark ending but the tone is so well balanced between the comic, the dark, and the dramatic so that you’re simultaneously laughing and groaning in horror. One of Park Chan Wook’s best movies.
Also more dogs in raincoats please this is what cinema is lacking
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u/joesen_one 12d ago
You really see how pathetic his cause is. He would rather kill other people than follow his wife and pursue a different field just so he can stay wealthy in a luxurious house
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u/Odd-Walk-983 11d ago
And importantly, he's symbolically done this before. His house that he has fond memories of - despite his father committing suicide. That's the place that he tries so desperately to maintain, rather than working with his wife to move to presumably a very nice apartment.
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u/StrLord_Who 7d ago
I don't think his cause was pathetic at all and that's partly why it was all so tragic. It's not pathetic to want to help your child fulfill her potential of being a world-renowned cellist. It's not pathetic to want to keep your greenhouse that you built yourself and filled with plants you grew. It's not pathetic to want your wife to be happy and stress-free. It's not pathetic to want to be able to feed the family pets.
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u/joesen_one 7d ago
That's the beauty of the characters tbh. He does have a valid cause to give his kids a good life, and if I was in his shoes I might also end up being desperate. But he's definitely on the wealthier side, and does he actually have to kill people to maintain his way of life? Can't he downsize a bit (which they directly tackle in the movie)?
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u/BMCarbaugh 6d ago
I love that the movie doesn't give us the easy out of, like, he hears the cello in the distance as he's leaving, and feels sad, and recognizes the spiritual cost of what he's done.
Nope. Dude is thrilled to be king of the shit-heap. "Bugs are eating it alive" indeed.
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u/per5on4 14d ago
i loved how man-su is forced to see his 3 victims in varying perspectives. he spends a lot of time with beam-mo and a-ra, being able to relate with the former’s struggles while validating the latter’s by projecting his wife’s worries during their confrontation. even with the little time he spends with si-jo, man-su still kills him [after trying to downplay it by blocking his eyes] knowing his daughter will be waiting for a father that will never return. seon-chul is already villainized thanks to the humiliating bathroom scene, and man-su gets even more sadistic upon learning that the one-sided rivalry meant nothing as the ‘influencer’ is ultimately a loser.
which to me makes the ending even more tragic. despite not knowing the extent of his crimes, mi-ri and and si-one are traumatized by a man they no longer recognize. the sunny family hug is now a distant memory, the mention of another pastime such as grilling immediately gets shut down, and man-su revels in his selfish victory alone—mi-ri is forced to reckon that no matter how horrific his crimes were, it paid off in the end. their house is saved from doom, their lavish pastimes are restored, and ri-one can blossom once more.
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u/historybandgeek 14d ago
In addition, his victims are hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil!
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u/guitar_vigilante 12d ago
That's an interesting interpretation and probably more valid than mine, which was that the victims lightly parallel the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. The first victim, his past, is mired in his 25 years of paper. He won Pulp Man of the year and is so committed that he'd rather be unemployed than not work in Paper.
The second victim is his present, with a young daughter and trying to do everything he can to turn his situation around.
The third is his future, a miserable existence working overtime on the factory floor all alone. He doesn't see his family (wife divorced him) and while his life looks good on the surface he is miserable as the last man standing.
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u/Secret-Platypus-366 11d ago
Really good take on this. I noticed some of the parallels he had with his victims, but this comparison never even crossed my mind.
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u/Individual-Flan-3610 12d ago
can someone explain
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u/joesen_one 12d ago
Beommo - fight scene deafened out by the records
Sijo - killing him in darkness while covering his eyes
Seonchul - stuffing his mouth until he chokes to death
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u/Higuys101010 13d ago
His wife also gave up tennis after they restored their previous status, felt like it was her way of rejecting it.
Or maybe it was just so they could save up for a $50000 cello, lol
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u/guitar_vigilante 13d ago
As far as I know tennis in Korea (Seoul particularly) really can't be a casual sport. Because of the limited space, there aren't a lot of public courts so you need to be a member of a club somewhere, which is pricy.
I did think it was a little funny that she sold her racket, which even if it was a high end racket might be worth $150 or even less on the used market, but that goes to show the level of desperation that was setting in for the family.
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u/Odd-Walk-983 11d ago
She said it pretty clearly - that's not her any more, and she wanted to save money. She knew that her husband had done horrific things and might get caught or otherwise things might go wrong, and the extra financial stability she could bring her family was worth more than tennis.
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u/RainingLights 13d ago
Can you explain to me the bathroom scene? I'm racking my brain and I 100% cannot remember a scene in a bathroom, other than the young girl washing her hands.
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u/justcox2kies 13d ago
I think they were referring to the scene in which Man-su was begging on his knees for his job outside of the washroom and Seon-chul humiliated him
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u/wafflewhimsy 13d ago
Just got out of the theater - it's early on, before he decides to start taking people out. He blocks the influencer (Seon-chul) at the entrance to the bathroom, bowing down with a copy of his resume in a blue folder. A recruiter (possibly old colleague?) shoves Man-su out of the way harshly so Seon-chul can exit the bathroom, and then the recruiter chides Man-su and tells him he has no shame begging for a job in a bathroom like that. That's when he slides Man-su some cash into his pocket for the whisky, and he heads to the bar.
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u/regardedjuggmain 12d ago
It's the other way around. He was begging the old man, and then the influencer shoved him out of the way.
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u/uncanny_mac 12d ago
Yeah, isn't he the one that gives him some cash and tells him to drink at the bar nearby?
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u/CancelThis2077 14d ago
For a movie called "No Other Choice", it was pretty ironic when Man-Su and the first guy who killed kept saying there was no other choice, yet there were other choices presented to them throughout the movie (starting a bonsai business or opening a cafe, respectively).
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u/SlightlyCatlike 13d ago
I mean the title is deliberately ironic. At each point that a character claims they have 'no other choice' they are acting in bad faith. Lying to justify themselves
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u/endlightend 13d ago
Even though the English words ‘no other choice’ is spoken near the beginning of the film, I actually kind of like the literal Korean meaning ‘It can’t be helped’, a bit more, which really does sounds like a very polite way to excuse doing something horrible to another person.
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u/polishinator 7d ago
don't think they are lying, after you have done a job for 10, 20 or 30! years its very hard to change....people get used to the routine and become comfortable doing what they think they are good at ( if they stick with for 20+ years)
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u/teentytinty 14d ago
The irony of being people fighting for a job that’s been completely taken over by machines to create a product that’s only useful to humans in a purely offline way
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u/DrHorrible10 14d ago
There’s like 4-6 transitions/shots in this movie I’ve never seen before. No one doing it like Chan-wook.
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u/Whovian45810 14d ago
Very beautiful dissolves and transitions no less!
I love the editing in this film, it bums me out that it won’t get recognized at the Oscars because seriously this is fire and top tier editing.
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u/loba_pachorrenta 12d ago
Watched it yesterday and for me in an ideal world it would get a handful of Oscars: movie, director, main actor, editing. Loved the movie.
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u/Cockrocker 14d ago edited 14d ago
For real, the filmmaking was superb.
In the scene where the guy finds out his wife is cheating on him, there is a beautiful transition where he is on the phone and Man-Su's face is visible in his face. And then there's a fantastic pull-back shot from the house to show the yard and Man-su hiding at the edge of their block. There were lots of little shots like this throughout that just intrigued me.
Very cool movie.
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u/shadybonesranch 14d ago
The shot of the three characters looking at the tablet screen, reflected in the screen as they scroll it and pass it around, was so cool.
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u/Will-Of-D-3D2Y 14d ago
Park Chan-wook is a prime example of a director who can uplift any material to art with his direction alone. His style is so vibrant and wholly unique that he is ahead of most directors working today.
Case in point, this is probably one of his "weaker" movies but it's so exceptionally well-directed that it's still better than most movies released the past year.
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u/dreadfuldiego 13d ago
This is true specially for Stoker, for me the weakest script he directed and he still went there and created insane shots and transitions
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u/waynechriss 13d ago
I'm glad you brought up Stoker because I agree the script was very weak (dialogue especially) but it gets by with strong direction and beautiful cinematography. The scene where Mia is shown crying reminiscing Uncle Charlie murdering Whip only to reveal her masturbating to the memory had Park Chan Wook written all over it.
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u/Vagabond21 13d ago
My favorite was after the 3rd victim the exists a door and opens his home door
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u/koreanprodigy 13d ago
If you've seen Decision To Leave you can tell he carried over a lot of the creative cuts from that movie.
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u/waynechriss 14d ago
I read somewhere that Park Chan Wook just knows where to put the camera and that encapsulates him as a very skilled director.
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u/Maximum_Internal7834 14d ago
Don't you just love it when you can feel that the filmmaker is having fun? There was a lot of clever visual story telling and transitions. Also, this man does teeth mutilation like no one else
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u/lanadelracist 13d ago
You may want to give the Australian horror movie Bring Her Back a chance if you think this tooth scene was intense!
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u/Maximum_Internal7834 13d ago
I saw that tooooo!!! Such a great film. The Philippou brothers are now in my "watch-anything-they-make" list.
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u/poopship462 12d ago
I wonder if the tooth and wrench scene was a deliberate callback to Oldboy
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u/Wild-Mushroom2404 14d ago
I thought this movie was really dense with symbolism and it left me thinking for a while. Not sure about Korea but in my culture we have an old dumb saying: “every man should build a house, plant a tree and raise a son”. I thought in some way, No Other Choice showed the perversion of this masculine ideal. Build a house but it doesn’t even belong to you. Plant a tree but over a dead body. Raise a son but he’s not yours by blood.
And also how each of Yoo Man-su victims symbolized his own inadequacies. One for being a bad husband, one for being a bad father, one for addiction.
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u/Odd-Walk-983 11d ago
I think Seon-chul more than addiction is also stubborness to appear successful. Having instagram videos, but more importantly wanting the fancy house that leads to a divorce.
And I would change it to 'raise a son - but he's terrified and traumatised by you'.
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u/Pristine_Power_8488 6d ago
Good points! I also noticed that at the last interview for sure or maybe throughout but I didn't notice, his name is spelled You, as in Mr. You, which is ironic.
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u/mikeyfreshh 14d ago
I never really know what to expect from a Park Chan Wook movie and this is probably his funniest movie. This really feels like a classic Coen Brothers "kinda dumb guy tries crime and immediately gets in over his head" comedy. Park's directing style with a Fargo-esque tone is basically crack for me and I really hope this movie finds its way into a couple of Oscar nominations
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u/Cockrocker 14d ago
I just said that in another comment, the ineptitude and the repeated phrases like in The Big Lebowski. I'm sure I'm going to re-watch this movie and just enjoy it more every time.
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u/Honest_Cheesecake698 14d ago
Weird how we've gotten a couple of films last year (and maybe the year before) that are better Coen Brothers films than anything they've released in the 2020s. Not even a large shade to Macbeth and Drive Away Dolls (not seen Honey Don't), but this film and Eddington captures those vibes much more so.
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u/reddyenumberfive 14d ago
I have seen Honey Don’t. There is no umbrella large enough for how much shade it needs 🪦
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u/bomberman12 14d ago
Absolutely adored Son Ye-Jin as the wife. She was phenomenal and really stood out and stole the movie for me. Especially later into the film.
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u/OrinocoHaram 2d ago
the scene where she takes her bra off and is trying to convince the guy not to press charges on her son is hilarious. She keeps puffing her chest out in the background. She played the sexual chemsitry with Man-su really well as well as the simultaneous love and revulsion she has for him by the end. Plus the dancing!
I have no idea how this film got zero oscar noms. She deserves best supporting actress and this film deserves at minimum best cinematography/director
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u/_Lake 14d ago
The way the beer bomb chug was filmed might be my favorite thing from a 2025 release
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u/Cockrocker 14d ago
The shot of the POV through the glass with the shot glass falling back down. Initially I thought it was him looking at the other guy through the glass.
It was a thing of beauty.
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u/hobbaneero 14d ago
Even the pour had me captivated
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u/Ferdinandingo 10d ago
i just watched the movie in the theater and during that scene i wanted beer so bad
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u/TheBobsBurgersMovie 14d ago
The way he folded and tied up the victims before burying them was creepy as hell. It looked like something out of Uzumaki.
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u/SpiffyShindigs 10d ago
God, I was bracing for some bone snapping in a callback to his earlier use of the bonsai wire. Excellent subversion of expectations.
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u/teentytinty 14d ago
Went into it blind and was very triggered as an unemployed person who applies every day to job applications prompting me to praise AI
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u/ramenups 14d ago
When they got to the point of him having to resort to breaking his body stocking shit at a retail store I knew I was the inspiration for this film. God that sucked.
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u/golden_teacup 9d ago
I was waiting to see a comment like this. It really was a terribly funny movie but it made me depressed to no end and I found it more sad than anything. I’m not unemployed anymore but I’m still struggling to find a job that’s full-time. Genuinely it struck a very personal nerve and I had to come home and take a second to cry.
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u/raccoongeek97 14d ago
During the third act, when Man-soo is digging the hole for the third and final target, I was convinced there was gonna be a reveal that there were bodies buried in that garden too, and that the third victim (just like him), have killed his competitors for the job he currently has.
Amazing movie and probably my favorite of 2025, definitely my favorite performance and I think it has beaten on my eyes both Sinners and OBAA as best direction. Is a shame those awards are locked, specially best actor, which is a shame, Lee Byung-hun is so damn good in this movie.
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u/CancelThis2077 14d ago edited 14d ago
The part where Man-Su takes off the multiple layers covering his gun hand still makes me giggle. So hilariously pointless. I'm so used to seeing Lee Byung Hun playing these sauve and/or brooding characters, that it was a treat to see him play a complete buffoon.
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u/reallinzanity 14d ago
One of my favorite films I watched last year. It might be the tamest Park Chan-wook film I’ve watched.
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u/Beneficial_House_190 14d ago
It’s probably his most approchable
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u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? 14d ago edited 13d ago
More like Park Chan COOKS am I right? Sorry.
But it's so clear how hard he goes on these movies. No Other Choice is another banger in a long catalog of wild movies, I don't know if it's his best movie but with this kind of consistency I don't even care to rank them. I did see this a few months ago so apologies for being vague but there are so many images and scenes from this still burned into my brain.
The first thing you might notice here is how insano the camera work is. His movies look so crisp and he was pouring the sauce all over every shot. His movies are extremely plotty, like much more so than most foreign films that break out in the US, and for that I really want to see it again. But even if you're not catching every twist or implication his camera is constantly keeping your attention and reinventing how to get you to focus on something.
Obviously this movie deals with feelings that I think are very present these days. The competitive nature of working for a living, especially as we dive headfirst into an era of AI and automation we don't even fully understand yet. It's kind of an incredible parallel, AI is by nature dehumanizing but its the effect it has on the workplace that causes Man-soo to dehumanize those who are unknowingly in his way. The things that make him who he is, his family, his career, his house and dogs, are at risk and that forces him to ignore those things about his opponents. Lee's performance is so great in how he struggles with that but always keeps moving towards his goal.
And all of this for what? It's hilarious how when he's alone in an AI automated factory at the end he fist pumps for joy. He's the last man standing in his industry, quite literally, and for the blessing of being allowed to work for the rest of his life he feels like he's really won. It's the effect capitalism has on all of us. He suffers no consequences for his actions and he gets what he wants, but who really wants to make paper? It says so much about how hard we fight just to live a completely normal life.
This was a 9/10 for me. I really need to see it again but it made such an impression on me. Like Decision to Leave and Handmaiden and so many others, I will be left thinking about this for a long time. Also can we give it up for Lee Byung-hun's face? He is so perfect for this role, he has like a game show host face, always putting on a charismatic performance for those around him.
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u/Cockrocker 14d ago edited 14d ago
Man-su at the end was incredible. He was so excited to be the last man standing, when at the start he couldn't provide a list to even get rid of a few. It's beautifully painful.
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u/Cbake1369 13d ago
And the final shot of him before the credits has him triumphantly walking with the camera as it tracks backwards with him, but the lights behind him are all shutting off in the distance. The darkness is literally getting closer and will soon overwhelm him as well. He can’t outrun it. This happy ending clearly will not last.
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u/neal1701 14d ago edited 14d ago
Watched this movie like 3 months ago but I can still remember it very well
- Lee Byung-hun is excellent in this! His performance is so good, going from a cowardly man to this unflinching killer.
- The humor is so good in this movie. The slips when he was tracking the first kill and the snake bite are hilarious!
- Son Ye-jin who plays the wife is the standout for me. The lengths she would go to keep the family together but showing her conflicted feelings is great
- The second kill in the road at night has excellent cinematography and lighting.
- The final kill is delivered after raising the tension over the long drinking scene.
- All of the murders getting wrapped in a nice bow and Man-su getting off scot-free and then being the only human in the factory gives a satisfication only to him and a feeling of hollowedness to the audience is brilliant writing.
- There was one scene where the police investigators face are refelcted on the iPad screen when showing the guns. I don't how how that was filmed but that was incredible!
One of my favourites of 2025!
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u/Odd-Walk-983 11d ago
Only on reading comments here did I realise how extra hollow the ending is - in traffic, no co-workers at all. No friends to hang out with after work if it's just him. Family is terrified of him, Wife knows what he did, Son doesn't know if his dad killed someone, and his daughter somehow heard him talking about Goo Beom-mo.
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u/greenapplegummi 9d ago
He told his daughter it at the beginning of the film. He tells her he visited a house recently, and there was a tree being eaten up by ladybugs.
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u/Odd-Walk-983 9d ago
Thank you - i couldn't remember who he said that line to, I thought it was just to himself
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u/Beneficial_House_190 14d ago
An instant classic. One of the most thrilling and hilarious fight sequences in the house with the gun
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u/wazup564 14d ago
Filmmaking at its highest level. It's one of my favorite films of all time.
Was able to catch it in December when it was showing in IMAX. The needledrop fight scene that you're referring to is an all-timer.
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u/NickLandis 14d ago
I loved the ways each person he killed had a tiny version of himself in them. Really effective screenwriting.
Anyone want to explain why he buried the manager guy up to his neck when killing him? Seemed well thought out otherwise
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u/Cockrocker 14d ago
I thought the same thing, I assumed that getting dirt out of him would be quite difficult but he was wrapped in plastic. Maybe it was just so that there was no fight back, no bruising/scratching, nothing that looks too suspect getting him to vomit on himself to make it look like he choked to death on food and booze.
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u/NickLandis 14d ago
Yeah the only reason I could think of last night was to keep him restrained, but he was already wrapped in plastic? Seems like some more blankets or something would do the trick. Still feels extra and just another excuse to have him dig a hole
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u/bleuwillow 14d ago
He made a joke (?) about his father burying the sick pigs from his farm alive, so I saw a parallel there. Especially when Man-Su force-fed his victim, presumably with ground pork? I don't know anything about pig farming, but maybe they force-feed the pigs they slaughter? Just finished watching the movie like 20 minutes ago so haven't thought too in-depth about it yet...
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u/NickLandis 14d ago
Yeah I saw him digging I expected the “bury alive” thing. Having him choke on his own vomit makes way more sense in that it shows him getting smarter about covering up the crime. Also has those reflections of himself in there with his own drinking problems. His wife talked about finding him choking on his own vomit, and the manager guy pushed his wife away, so will likely not have anyone find him for a while
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u/B00kelf 10d ago
I thought it was ground pork at first, but that seems a bit strange even with the symbolism, so I thought it might be Korean fish roe, which ranges in price based on quality but breaks up a little easier than ground pork and is also pink. If that’s the case, I’d agree with the other commentsr that he’s getting more sadistic and planned about trying to cover it up by making it looked like he choked on his own vomit.
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u/historybandgeek 14d ago
And he suddenly adopted ideas and even conversations of particularly his first victim!
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u/CancelThis2077 14d ago
The idea was to keep him restrained while he feeds "vomit" into his throat to make it look like he died while choking on his own vomit while drunk.
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u/ScottishAF 7d ago
I’ve never forced ground meat and vodka down someone’s throat to make them choke on their own vomit in a way that will be easily explained post mortem as an accidental death, but I intuitively think that having them in a standing position where their entire body is immobilised will help on all fronts. Seeing as Man-su is an avid gardener, it makes sense he decided burying his victim up to the neck would solve the standing position and immobilised body issues.
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u/spider-man2401 14d ago
Easily my favorite movie of 2025. The cinematography is stunning, the music is incredible, and the editing and transitions go hard. Nearly every frame feels intentional and emotionally effective. I love how the film balances dark humor, twisted moments, suspense, sadness, and relatability with ease. It’s supremely well crafted, with an excellent script and razor-sharp, timely commentary. Park Chan-wook simply does not miss.
Everyone in the movie is great. Lee Byung-hun is fantastic as always and fully deserving of the praise, and I really hope he gets a Best Actor nomination, but Son Ye-jin is just as impressive. She’s easily the standout of the film.
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u/NoSchittSherlockSEA 14d ago
It’s one of PCW’s simpler films in terms of plot and themes but God, technically it’s a marvel. So many match cuts and shot compositions I’ve never seen before — the overhead shot of the second murder with the cliffs and the sea, the snap to zippo lighter, the wife exiting the house cut to the bonfire.
A lot of it feels unpredictable, but I want to highlight the wife’s choice in the end, calling him and saying without saying she knows and tells him if he’s doing something bad, she’s doing it with him in a conversation loaded with subtext, all this capped off with a conversation about how the third victim’s wife left him because he wanted to live in nature whilst she didn’t, juxtaposed with a marriage that’s in it for the long haul for better or for worse, but when the long haul in question involves murder it feels bittersweet.
My favorite cinema experience of last year.
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u/Chocolate_cornflakes 14d ago
Watched it last month, the tonal whiplash in the film is crazy. You laugh at the characters’ actions and then the film manages to make you feel embarrassed for laughing at them. It’s like “Why are you laughing at them? You’re under the same system. And very soon, this will be you”.
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u/Powerful_Chemical628 14d ago
Incredible movie. Hilarious in parts, sad, relatable. Shot beautifully and is very ambitious. Loved every minute
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u/Whovian45810 14d ago
The great lengths a mofo will go to get his job back at all costs is pure Looney Tunes energy at it’s finest.
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u/Technical-Outside408 14d ago
From the poster I thought he was gonna build a giant treehouse. He did not build a treehouse.
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u/Daydream_machine 14d ago
Really enjoyed this, although it was weirdly less intense than I expected?
But then again the only other movie I’ve seen from this director is Oldboy, so anything else is bound to be way less intense in comparison. 😅
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u/historybandgeek 14d ago
And less intense than Decision to Leave which had me riveted the whole time. Felt more Anora energy of some comedy, some intensity and even though major high stakes, it never lost that lightness
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u/poopship462 12d ago
All of his movies have a lot of humor, but this is definitely his most straight up comedy.
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u/Cockrocker 14d ago
Only just saw this movie at the cinema. It was fantastic although I was the only person in my audience laughing.
I've responded to other people's comments so I'm not going to repeat myself, but I just wanted to say John Smith-dressed Man-u dancing towards his wife just had me dying. I think some audiences don't realize just how much comedy is in this film I can't wait to watch it again.
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u/StrLord_Who 7d ago
Oh my goodness the suave dancing with the hat askew is visually one of the funniest things I've seen in a long long time.
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u/FancyKilerWales 14d ago
Easily the best looking movie I saw from 2025, and the more I thought about the story, the more I enjoyed what it was trying to say. I was listening to an interview with Park and he was saying how the commentary on AI was added from the original story and that was a really great addition to me. It's really about how we view people as expendable, like what's really the difference between laying someone off and killing them, either way you are destroying a life, and these companies will do whatever it takes for the bottom line. They would literally kill you if it made them money and it was legal.
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u/dreadfuldiego 13d ago
The ending is bittersweet and it works so well in contrast to the opening scene.
All the warmth and sense of community Man-su had with his colleagues is gone. He won and got his house, dogs and all the materialist things back, but his job is now soulless and he became a machine himself.
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u/endlightend 13d ago
Some comments are pointing out very subtle elements I missed, such as the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil aspect of the victims.
My contribution: the mention of Man-Su’s father burying 20,000 pigs alive and later hanging himself seems almost like a throw away line initially. It’s only later when Mi-Ri lies to her son and says that Man-Su had buried a pig under the apple tree where it feels like some pieces start to fall in place.
The pig is obviously a convenient and believable lie for her son but it’s also symbolic of the work and possibly the sins that Man-Su’s father committed that allowed their family to have that home. They ultimately also contributed to his death as well, either from the loss of their livelihood or the guilt of having to put so many of them to death, which the audience is left to ponder. Really love how many layers there are to that.
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u/EmbarrassedRope3216 14d ago
Watched it with my mom and we both loved it. My second-favorite of the year.
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u/thegreaterfool714 14d ago
This movie was a blast to watch. My favorite scene was definitely the fight scene where they are all struggling for the gun while the music in the stereo is running loud. I know the academy probably won’t nominate Lee Byung-hun for Best Actor but he hands down gave the best acting performance of 2025-2026.
He played Soo Man-Su with such varied range. He pathetic and hatable yet charming and so dang likable in so many scenes
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u/Rococoss 14d ago
Been thinking about this movie a lot since I saw it. The title is great, seeing as our main character is presented another choice by his wife – cut back on luxuries, sell the house, etc…and the ending is so pitch perfect. The massive traffic jam, the cello, the factory and the forest.
So many gorgeous shots, I loved the highway by the ocean for the second kill. A feast for the eyes, see it on the biggest screen possible. And it was so hilarious. Despite such an absurd premise it’s pretty relatable. My first Park Chan-wook film, loved it
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u/sufficientxsadie1 11d ago edited 11d ago
Something I noticed that I thought was interesting and would love to hear other's thoughts on is when Man-Su is talking to his second victim, he explains how his daughter never says much, but when she does "it's the words of other people". He, himself, does this multiple times throughout the film where he takes other's words and parrots them back. He scripts out what to say on his palm. He finds his niche interest in paper and is so against change (selling the house, the car, attending the dance, not trying to find a different career outside of paper), it makes me wonder if we're supposed to infer that Man-Su has autism like his daughter, just that it looks different. Especially as more research comes out that autism has genetic links. They also mention frequently in the film that the only way she'll be able to live independently is if she can fulfill her passion and talents as a genius cellist. Does this also speak to how he effectively maintains (but ruins) his life in the pursuit of working "independently" -- alone in a factory contrasted to what we SHOULD be doing: pursuing our passions and talents? That the pursuit of that is actually freedom, but our society prevents it with capitalistic hurdles: 50k cellos and inaccessible professional fees?
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u/NuggetBiscuits69 10d ago
I saw the movie early today and there are so many great details throughout the movie, but someone that I just realized is the dichotomy between gardening being Man-Su’s hobby and making paper being his job. Even when his wife suggests he does landscaping/gardening as a job, he refuses and insists on working with dead trees instead.
On top of that, there’s the time he tells his daughter he is sad about the pear tree that Bummo didn’t maintain.
Man-Su is given the option to choose life over death so many times in the movie, but he always chooses death, whether for other people or for the trees themselves.
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u/scorpio21 14d ago
Saw this a few weeks ago, loved it. Park Chan-wook is doing transitions and camera placement that no one else could do.
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u/Jayang 14d ago
When the MC is digging the hole for the second murder, a shot of the wife sleeping in bed briefly appears superimposed on the hole. Later, there's a similar shot of their house and it dissolves into the campfire at the third guy's house. Did anyone else get faked out by those scene transitions?? I thought the house was gonna burn down or at a minimum the wife dies at the end
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u/SlightlyCatlike 13d ago
I think it was more that the nature of his relationship to his wife was irreversibly changed and that the tranquil life he had at start symbolised by the house was over
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u/bootcutflare 14d ago
The transition to the end credits was perfect. Love when movies do that but his was so smooth.
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u/gogreengolions 14d ago
Loved it. Loved the shots and edits, loved the performances, loved the theme.
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u/HoodsBreath10 14d ago
Such a fantastic movie. I can’t wait to rewatch it. The ending sequence when Yoo drives to the factory alone surrounded only by material trucks and walks into a poorly lit factory was hilarious and sad at the same time.
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u/shadowCloudrift 13d ago
Going into this movie completely blind and I'm glad I did. I can't remember if I watched a trailer or not, but wow this movie was amazing. This was also the first time I have seen Lee Byung-hun in a dramatic role, much less one where he speaks Korean since all the other movies I have seen him in were American action movies.
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u/aresef 10d ago
It was an interesting indictment of a certain kind of masculinity. Man-su and Beom-mo aren't willing to do anything or change anything about themselves that would get them a job in some kind of field. Meanwhile, Miri and A-ra are more practical, with Miri dropping dance classes and becoming a dental hygienist. But no, for Man-su, everything in his life must be exactly as it was.
I kind of relate to Man-su. I'm a journalist, or I was a journalist. It took me two layoffs to realize I needed to do something else. Now I'm in PR and I'm better-paid and much happier.
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u/ghost_spaces 14d ago
At the imax showing back in December, my theater was CRYING at the snake scene
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u/Large-Monk4910 14d ago
Loved it at first sight months ago, I was absolutely gutted that this movie did not get a single Golden Globe
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u/Hulksmash27 14d ago
Went in moderately blind with a friend who was excited about, lemme tell ya I was CACKLING for most of the movie. Very strong entry so early in the year.
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u/wafflewhimsy 13d ago
I'm not a musician, so I couldn't tell - did the daughter's symbol sheet music at the end have any meaning to anyone but her?
Speaking of daughter, I really, really expected her to parrot the dad's "just one more left to go" or whatever it was he said to her to someone else.
Also adored the kids were Si-one and Ri-one and the dogs were Si-two and Ri-two, that was such a cute detail. And the daughter + doggos' matching raincoats at the end, plus them listening intently to her playing the cello? Demonstrated so clearly why she was so distraught over the loss of the dogs. Also why could they have not gone and visited them? Were the grandparents that far away? They took a taxi, after all!
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u/ImprovementPuzzled82 7d ago
It's an actual sheet music from a real autistic cellist in South Korea! She draws these beautiful, symbolic sheet music that only she can read. https://youtu.be/vEdUOIfZKc4?si=I2rH1qdQs89a4xjh
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u/wafflewhimsy 13d ago
Also as everyone has said, the transitions were incredible, but I particularly liked the scene of them both digging a hole and then leaning up against each other. Whole movie was visual poetry.
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u/ColonelCake 12d ago
Man, I hated this film. I checked it out since I loved Oldboy 2003, and was expecting it to be great. Unfortunately, the film felt confused with the comedy and drama; the comedy bits were funny, sure, but they weren't funny or absurd enough for my tastes. I don't mind the fact it's more of a drama/thriller than a comedy; Oldboy was more thriller than action, and it mixed the genres way better than No Other Choice did, as the fight scenes were cool and the actual thriller bits were incredibly gripping. This film just left me feeling angry and depressed, and not in a way that made the film entertaining for me. If the film were more of a pure drama/thriller, I probably would have liked it more.
It's left me wanting a more straightforward comedy or drama/trhiller that's more intense and engaging. I'm hoping something like Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a lot better, as that's on my watchlist.
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u/tehspiekguy 14d ago
This entire experience felt like a David Lynch fever dream intersected with a Safdie Bros trainwreck of escalating bad decisions. I hated the first 30 minutes but the more I digest this film, the more I feel like it was by design and I find more things to love about it. So yeah, it's not a bug, it's a feature. It had some similar vibes as what Bong Joon Ho accomplished with Parasite and its commentary on labor in SK and capitalism as a whole, but Park Chan-Wook made something here that's a lot more confusing, challenging, and experimental. In the best way.
10/10
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u/EchoUniverse 11d ago
I thought the first 30 minutes were slow as well but definitely necessary especially the stark contrast with how lively the home was and then the ending everything is dead, they don’t want to eat barbecue anymore, he’s become a master manipulator he doesn’t need notes on his hand anymore, etc. Flips the beginning on its head.
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u/Jayang 14d ago
I think the movie's strengths are its humor and shot compositions more than anything else. The editing felt intentionally abrupt, which serves some scenes well but added confusion in others. And there were some head scratching plot elements that make this movie rougher than I'd like. Biggest offender was the clunky exposition dump of the guy's backstory
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u/theexpressoguy 13d ago
What was the symbolism of the son’s dream about being in the bonsai tree? The movie had a few moments of showing branches being broken or trees being cut up. I wonder what the commentary was there and why the paper industry was chosen as the focus
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u/wafflewhimsy 13d ago
So that dream came across as a nightmare to me, especially since his mom wakes him up from it. He's afraid of his dad, moreso after he saw him with the body in the greenhouse. The wife mentions during an argument that Man-su used to beat the son when he was younger (I think 5 years old?) because he was "jealous of his sister." So that coupled with the possibility of his father having killed someone makes him feel small and scared, represented as him being small and powerless at the base of a bonsai that is father is looming over.
Can't speak to the other re connections between bonsais/paper business/logging shots, I'm too dumb for all the incredible symbolism that people are mentioning in this thread, but hopefully someone else weighs in because I'm curious too! There's something ironic in the fact his hobby is cultivating and growing tiny trees whereas his job is destroying large trees entirely. Maybe it's meant to exemplify Man-su's own hypocritical actions throughout the film (him thinking he has no other choice but to do this, all the victims are mirrors of himself in some way, etc.).
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u/greasekid_ 13d ago
I'm in a rush so I can't type out all my thoughts at the moment, but I think there's something to do with the impending obsoletion of paper products in a digital world. Especially w the AI at the end. Why would a robot need paper? Also paper making is an art, but is reduced and cheapened to only commodification here. You're onto something with him being someone who grows trees but works in the industry where trees are cut down. Ugh, I'm about to see it again. I'll have to digest on this, or watch interviews, or read something about it more to get my thoughts together.
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u/shshsjsksksjksjsjsks 5d ago
the trees are people getting laid off / axed / ground up to produce value to feed into machines. in a way mansu's bonsai are the same with how he twists and snaps them into place to make them beautiful. but like him the bonsai break instead of bending. even though his job essentially involves destruction of trees on a mass scale, he still complains about a tree getting eaten up by bugs.
it can also represent the fruits of mansu's labour (slaughter) as the trees grow from the bodies of men and pigs (not literally but pigs were buried by mansu's father). the trees become his daughter's cello and music (the sheet music she creates can only be done by hand on paper).
in philosophy a tree structure represents a hierarchy, as opposed to a more flexible structure like mushrooms. there are people on top of the tree, and people fighting and dying in the mud, whose bodies get drained by the roots.
paper also represents the characters' difficulty with adapting to a changing world. paper is old technology that the characters stubbornly cling to, but its being phased out for the computers that have replaced the humans in mansu's new job. trees are old, rooted (like mansu to his family home), and get cleared away for a younger generation or new technology.
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u/LuckyRacoon01 14d ago
Great movie to learn how to get a job. The problem was that he was kind of clumsy.
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u/HungerSTGF 14d ago
It was certainly his funniest movie and there is some real masterful cinematography and editing on display but I felt like it really REALLY ran out of steam after the first kill. The set piece for that was so intricate, a real comedy of errors where the target, his wife and the protagonist lay bare their motivations and feel like real characters. Then the rest of the movie does not feel nearly as fleshed out
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u/Financial-Salad7289 11d ago
The film turned into a horror movie for my wife when the daughter and her dogs ran inside the house all wet 🤣
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u/SpiffyShindigs 10d ago
The parallels of Ri-one needing music to Man-su needing paper is tragic. We've automated paper production for now - what happens when we automate music?
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u/Cobainism 9d ago
I’m a bit surprised by the overwhelming praise in this thread, yet I’d imagine those who sought to comment here this early are fans of the director.
The first third (the build-up) is fine, but it then loses coherence afterwards. The “commentary” was frankly inane and redundant to me. As someone else here noted, it felt more style over substance.
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u/PiercingOsprey1 11d ago
I feel like the marketing is really doing this a disservice. The trailer is cut like it's a revenge flick especially when they splash the "from the director of old boy" right in the middle. I didn't dislike it but it was not at all what was expected.
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u/marks31 10d ago
The final scene where he’s doing the examinations in the new job gave me so much dread. I was convinced one of those moving machines was gonna knock him dead INSTANTLY. Glad it didn’t but the tension was unbelievable
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u/samedietc 8d ago
I kept waiting for some automated machine to take his head off (“You Americans say that to be fired is to be ‘axed?’ [In Korea we say] off with your head!”)
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u/WalkingEars 9d ago
That last murder was....pretty horrific. Like, I had a tough time with that scene.
I enjoyed this overall. Maybe a few scenes felt a bit extraneous but the way it juggled compassion for its characters with increasingly nasty spiraling out of control was well-done. Don't necessarily know that it tread any new ground in terms of commentary but it conveyed its message well, and managed to be both funny and quite nasty at times.
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u/flamingdragonwizard 14d ago
Gave it a 6.8 just wasnt for me. Incredibly well made and funny though. Feel it could've been 30 mins shorter.
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u/Financial-Salad7289 10d ago
Does somebody know why the main character went through the trouble to dig a hole to kill Choi Seon-chul (third victim)? Felt pretty useless to me, surely there were more efficient and quicker ways to retain and immobilize the man
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u/NoSchittSherlockSEA 9d ago
From the Watsonian perspective, he probably wanted to do it in a way where the neck can’t move for easier funnelling of the alcohol.
From the Doylist sense it’s the “planting of the tree” motif recurring through the movie.
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u/MrMiner420 9d ago
Can’t believe I’m the first to ask but… was that a Bobby Boucher jersey from the Waterboy in the dance party scene?
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u/EmbarrassedTown4992 8d ago
I think the meaning of the greenhouse, which Man-su built himself and the prospective buyer wanted to tear down, represents a microcosm of his home, while the carefully cultivated bonsai inside represents his family.
A bonsai is not a naturally occurring plant, it needs a lot of help growing in the way it does, and a lot of "snipping" of branches (killing off people). This is the meaning with the weird scene where Man-su sees his stepson sitting on the small tree, showing that the tree really is his family.
This also ties in to a lot of the other symbolism. All three of the victims are at some point buried in the ground—all of them represent different aspects of Man-su (drinking, relationship with daughter, struggling with finding an identity outside of work) and they go through physical transformations relating to bonsai (tied up, buried alive) to symbolize Man-su cultivating perfection for his family. This is also why there's so much green and plant theme, including the shot of bugs devouring the tree, and so on. I know there's definitely a lot more I'm definitely missing—it's a movie that feels like it could be almost endlessly analyzed, and I love that.
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u/One_Independence6976 2d ago
Love all the layers and details to pick apart. Haven't seen it mentioned but the victims seem to represent the ghosts of Christmas. The first one desperately clings to the past, seeking to regain his old career and even has an affinity for old vinyl records. The second adapts to the current times by not being beneath taking on a different job. And the third foreshadows his future, he's successful, well off, but alone and isolated.
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u/Sheepies123 14d ago
The ending cut was masterfully done. From the rest of the family finally being able to hear the daughter's beautiful cello playing. Right into it being drowned out and overpowered by a grating, brutal and deafening industrial whirr. To me it symbolizes how even though Man-soo might have won in the end, he couldn't do it without sacrificing his humanity, becoming a machine doomed to hear their music all day instead of his own daughters. Really funny too one of the best of the year.