A line rings out early in the trailer—“Unemployment is not my fault!”—and with that Park Chan-wook reasserts himself as a master of bitter comedy dressed in blood-soaked clothes. His new film, No Other Choice, based on Donald Westlake's 1997 novel The Ax, has just released its official Korean trailer via CJ Entertainment, neatly timed to precede its world premiere at the 2025 Venice Film Festival later this week.
The setup is stripped to the bone: Man-soo, played by Lee Byung-hun, is a middle-aged man who's given decades of his life to a paper company only to be cut loose. After years of unemployment and humiliation, he decides the only way to get another job is to reduce the number of applicants in the market. Permanently. Son Ye-jin, Yeom Hye-ran, Park Hee-soon, Yoo Yeon-seok, and Cha Seung-won round out the supporting cast—an ensemble that promises both dramatic heft and tonal sharpness.
Trailer Breakdown
Park's trailers rarely sell plot; they sell atmosphere. Here we get a full dose. The imagery is a swirl of grim offices, rain-slick streets, and Park's usual dance between elegance and cruelty. Lee Byung-hun appears both pitiful and terrifying, his face alternating between desperation and calculated menace.
Notice the color palette—muted grays punctuated by bursts of arterial red—recalling Oldboy's blunt violence but with the controlled refinement of Decision to Leave. Shots linger on the tools of industry, papers and machines, reimagined as symbols of a man's disposability. In one scene, a potential rival is framed in silhouette, with the line “there's no other choice” underlining the inevitability of violence.
Context and Lineage
For Park, this is more than another macabre puzzle. It's his first feature since 2022's Decision to Leave, a film that earned global acclaim and positioned him as Korea's foremost stylist of noir-infused romance. Now, instead of sensual ambiguity, we're back in the realm of the grotesque comedy of survival, a thematic territory Park mined in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Thirst. But No Other Choice looks sleeker, more distilled—less operatic, more deadpan.
That's fitting, given Westlake's source novel. Hollywood once adapted The Ax in 2005 with Costa-Gavras directing and José Garcia in the lead. Park's version seems sharper, less corporate satire and more existential bloodletting. He co-wrote the screenplay with Lee Kyoung-mi, Jahye Lee, and Don McKellar, ensuring it carries both local texture and international resonance.
Release Strategy
No Other Choice premieres at the Venice Film Festival in late August 2025. It will screen across the fall festival circuit before hitting Korean theaters in September 2025. Neon has already secured U.S. rights, with a limited release planned later in 2025. Expect the campaign to lean heavily on Park's reputation with cinephiles while pushing Lee Byung-hun as the unhinged center of the story.
Why It Matters
South Korea's cinematic exports often thrive on genre elasticity—thrillers that double as social critiques, comedies that rot into horror. No Other Choice fits squarely into that tradition while also feeling tailor-made for today's precarious labor market. Viewers won't miss the allegory: when survival feels like a competition, empathy becomes the first casualty.
5 Key Takeaways from the No Other Choice Trailer
Park Returns to the Macabre
After Decision to Leave's romantic ambiguity, Park dives back into violent satire, reminding audiences of his darker instincts.
Lee Byung-hun at the Center
The actor plays Man-soo with a mix of desperation and menace, positioning himself for one of his most talked-about roles.
Visuals that Cut Deep
Muted grays and flashes of red dominate the trailer, echoing Park's earlier work while giving a new corporate-horror sheen.
A Timely Adaptation of Westlake's Novel
The 1997 book has been adapted before, but Park's take promises sharper social commentary and a more chilling tone.
Clear Release Roadmap
World premiere at Venice Film Festival 2025, Korean theatrical release in September 2025, and U.S. release via Neon later in the year.
What did you make of the trailer? Does Park's latest feel like a return to form, or a new evolution in his career?
