University students are all too aware of the troubles of the future job market. Hundreds of applications that end up being either ghosted or rejected, and when the rare interview invite appears in the inbox, it usually involves multiple stages with various rounds and even then, elusive job offers are few and far between. It’s infuriating – though with the prospect of security on the line, how far would you go for a job?
Park Chan-wook directs this morbid comedy asking just that.
No Other Choice follows Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), a father who gets laid off from a revered paper company he has devoted his life to. With a family to care for and his house on the line, he desperately tries to find new employment – a brief supermarket job doesn’t pay nearly enough to uphold his family’s standard of living. With an oversaturated job market and only one high-paying position, he decides he has ‘no other choice’ but to kill off his competition. What follows is a series of farcical events as Man-su’s obsession with working for a paper company drives him to attempt murder.
Focus on appearances shows how revolving life around work is unhealthy. Man-Su’s character initially wears pristine business attire, reflecting his respected place in society. As the story progresses, he takes on an increasingly dishevelled appearance as his desperation for the job reaches boiling point. The most stark change comes from his home, its idyllic appearance in the beginning seems to reflect a flawless family life. However, as his life is thrown into turmoil, cracks in his world are revealed; the house becomes a symbol of public facade, a visual representation of the tension between his desires and a dark inner reality. This tension is also played out in his marriage, where his wife is willing to make sacrifices at the cost of their relationship in order for her family to survive.
The heart of the film lies in its comedic critique of South Korean work culture. East Asian jobs are notoriously intensive, prioritising long hours and loyalty. China is famous for popularising the ‘996’ work culture, working from 9am-9pm, six days a week, although in the past years it has gone out of style, and South Korea tried increasing their already gruelling 52-hour work week to 69 hours which was met with heavy backlash from younger generations. The living-to-work culture is slowly being phased out, but for some, especially older generations, changing ways that have been hard-wired into them isn’t that simple.
Man-su’s obsessive pursuit and refusal to consider an alternative career path demonstrates how he holds his loyalty to this white-collar profession above all. The film admits he is an astute figure – he tracked down his victims by advertising a new, fake, paper business in the local news and once the resumes came in, he worked out who is more qualified than him, potential threats, and labelled them as targets. He could put those skills to good use, yet he chooses to chase a company that evidently doesn’t care about its people, replacing the majority of its human workforce with an automated system. But paper puts food on the table and pays the bills; monetary possessions are all that matter in a society that defines itself by work and whose people know nothing but it.
Whilst a commentary on how a man destroys his life through prioritising his work over everything, No Other Choice is inherently a black comedy with hilarious moments strewn throughout its gritty plot. One standout scene is when Man-Su finally works up the courage to kill off one of his competitors, Goo Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min), until Lee A-Ra (Yeom Hye-ran), Beom-mo’s wife, walks in and the three characters are thrown into a chaotic struggle for Man-su’s gun as a disco-funk track blares in the background of the scramble. It’s a scene that reminds the audience how absurd all of this is with the messy fight sequence revealing the great lengths people will go to to reclaim a place in society. The grapple ultimately ends with A-ra killing Beom-mo because she cannot stand her husband’s obsession with paper anymore. Maybe he should have taken her advice and opened a music cafe instead.
The film does have a character who had moved on from the paper industry, Man-su’s second victim, Ko Si-jo (Cha Seung-won). He owned a shoe shop to provide for his daughter and whilst not the most popular business or seen as a job that holds status, he is mostly content with his life. It could be better, all jobs could be, but it directly opposes Beom-mo and Man-su’s stubborn belief that happiness and fulfilment is only possible through outright devotion to paper.
Man-su and his relationship with his children is also paralleled against Si-jo’s relationship with his child. Si-jo displays more care towards his daughter in one brief interaction than Man-su does in the entire movie. Man-su is so caught up in taking out his competition that he fails to notice his son’s own worries about losing their house (leading him to get into trouble with the police), his daughter’s obvious cries for help, and his wife’s concerns about him. His deadly quest in obtaining a job that should make his family happier is tearing it apart, but he is blinded by expectations to see the misery he caused in his wake.
No Other Choice brings to light how a society that glamourises a career-centred life leads to people taking desperate measures to achieve what is believed to be socially acceptable. The comedic elements exacerbate how unhealthy competition and comparison is within East Asian work culture and that it’s ridiculous that providing for a family means sacrificing humanity. Chan-wook highlights how there are other choices, especially ones that don’t involve murder, but they are only achievable through breaking the norm.
Working to live rather than living to work is perfectly acceptable.
Rating: 4/5 ★ ★ ★ ★
