There's something perversely appropriate about Park Chan-wook returning to the big screen with a film about a man who kills for a job.
The trailer for No Other Choice dropped this week via Neon, just ahead of the expected announcement placing it in competition at the 82nd Venice Film Festival (August 27 – September 6, 2025). That's not confirmation—but let's be honest, it's Park. He doesn't do sidelines.
Adapted from Donald E. Westlake's 1997 novel The Ax, the film centers on a laid-off middle manager who, faced with dwindling prospects, decides to solve his job hunt with a more… permanent solution: eliminate his competitors, literally. It's the kind of logline that feels too on the nose—until you remember we live in a world where CEOs make mass layoffs on Zoom and call it “empathy-driven restructuring.”
Cha Seung-won leads the cast, with Park Hee-soon, Son Ye-jin, Yoon Ga-yi, and the ever-gravitas-laden Lee Byung-hun—marking his first collaboration with Park since Joint Security Area (2000) and Three… Extremes (2004). If there's a reunion worth noting, it's this one. Lee doesn't show up unless the material has blood under its fingernails.
Park, now 61, is no stranger to moral ambiguity. His cinema has always thrived in the gray zone—revenge (Oldboy), forbidden love (The Handmaiden), lonely obsession (Decision to Leave). But No Other Choice may be his most nakedly satirical plunge yet. Westlake's novel, written in the anxious shadow of late-stage capitalism, reads like a black comedy wrapped in HR protocol. You can almost hear the PowerPoint clicks behind each murder.
That the director has reportedly circled this project for over a decade adds gravity. This isn't just another entry in Park's immaculate filmography—it's a long-gestating thesis on the dehumanization of work. And if the trailer's cold palette and surgical pacing are any indication, Park isn't softening the blade.
What makes No Other Choice more than a curio, though, is the timing. Park's last feature, Decision to Leave, won him Best Director at Cannes in 2022—then he pivoted to American television (The Sympathizer for HBO). That detour, while solid, always felt like borrowed clothing. Now, back in his native language and style, Park seems ready to burn off the excess and cut to the bone.
It's tempting to compare this film to others in the “job-market-as-jungle” canon—American Psycho, Falling Down, maybe even Up in the Air if Clooney had a Glock—but Park's voice is different. It's less about catharsis than corrosion. He doesn't flinch from consequences. He lingers in them.
Trailer-wise? It's tight. Minimal exposition. A few bloody flashes. A calm voiceover that feels more like a eulogy than a sales pitch. It doesn't scream for your attention—it stalks you with it. And frankly, that's more disturbing.
Of course, trailers lie. Even the good ones. But Park's rarely do. When he releases a trailer like this, you get the sense he's already written the obituary for every character in it.
We'll know more once Venice confirms its full lineup tomorrow. Until then, No Other Choice already looks like one of fall's fiercest contenders—and not just because someone's swinging an axe.
