No Other Choice

A 2025 South Korean black comedy with a dramatic and thriller footing, directed by Park Chan-wook, who also produced and co-wrote it. A paper industry specialist loses his post after many years of service and, unable to find another, arrives at the decision to remove one by one the people who could compete with him for a job of the same kind. The satire grows out of that premise: murder is presented as a continuation of the job hunt, and the labour market as an environment that has already taught a man to count others as obstacles to himself. The source is the novel The Ax by the American writer Donald Westlake, published in 1997 and adapted for the screen once before in European cinema. Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin take the leading parts, and the cast also includes Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, Cha Seung-won and Yoo Yeon-seok. Park Chan-wook, who previously made Oldboy, The Handmaiden and Decision to Leave, works at the meeting of a tightly built plot, an exact composition of the frame and a cold irony, and this picture continues that line. The screenplay was written with Lee Kyoung-mi and Don McKellar, and the score is by Cho Young-wuk, the director's regular composer. CJ ENM Studios and Moho Film produced. The first screening took place at a festival on 29 August 2025, followed by releases in September and December 2025 and in February 2026.