Critic's Notebook

La Biennale di Venezia

If the premise of Park Chan-wook’s Venice International Film Festival entry, “No Other Choice,” sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it is based on Donald E. Westlake’s “The Ax,” which was previously adapted as “Le couperet” two decades ago by Costa-Gavras, to whom the new film is dedicated. I vaguely recall pitching Film Comment to review the Costa-Gavras iteration, but the magazine’s then-editor deemed him no longer relevant. “Le couperet,” which has yet to receive distribution of any kind in the States, is finally getting its long overdue flowers in 2025 thanks to Mr. Park.

Lee Byung-hun, who starred in classics such as “Joint Security Area” and “I Saw the Devil,” but is perhaps better known as the Front Man of “Squid Game,” plays Man-su, a papermill supervisor who is living the good life. He showers his wife, Miri (Son Yejin), with pricy gifts, invests in his daughter’s future career as a cellist and goes about buying back and fixing up his childhood home.

Their domestic bliss is truncated when Man-su’s employer, Solar Paper, is taken over by evil American corporate overlords whose first order of business is to rightsize the plant. Unwilling to compile a list of employees to be laid off, Man-su himself receives the dreaded pink slip. He participates in a confidence-building support group for the unemployed that includes speaking a job into existence within three months. Fast forward to 13 months later, and he’s doing manual labor at a big-box retailer that forces him to change out of uniform at the loading dock before he leaves.

Once Man-su’s severance pay is depleted, Miri has to drop out of her dance classes and tennis practices, withdraw their daughter from private cello lessons and liquidate their possessions. Foreclosure is imminent on Man-su’s childhood home. Out of desperation, he takes out a fake job ad in a trade publication to catfish his competitors for roles at paper mills that are still hiring. Once he identifies candidates more qualified and more deserving than him, he sets out to eliminate them one by one – literally.

The two interpretations of “The Ax” turn out to be quite different in tone and style, each standing firmly on its own. Unlike Costa-Gavras, Mr. Park frames the protagonist as more blue-collar. He also cast Mr. Lee, excellent as a villain in “Squid Game,” over someone amiable like José Garcia of “Le couperet.” We get a preview of how Mr. Lee may approach Jun-ho’s losing his innocence in the inevitable “Squid Game” prequel.

Westlake’s novel was first published in 1997, and Costa-Gavras’s adaptation was released in 2005. Yet this story resonates now more than ever. With only 1,000 private-sector jobs added in a place the size of New York City in the last six months, it’s full-on survival of the fittest. The biting allegory is kind of like “Squid Game,” but not on that “Battle Royale” scale.

Stylistically, “No Other Choice” bears the trademark elegance of late Park. There’s a touch of scenes visually overlapping. He still includes oddball characters, selects some unorthodox angles from time to time and plays tricks like fixing the frame on a beer mug as the character chugs it down, but everything is a bit more subdued. The bloodiest scene here involves a tooth extraction. One can say he’s mellowed or, rather, matured. But “No Other Choice” does drag a bit, falling just short of his masterpieces like “Decision to Leave.”