Original language title: “어쩔수가없다”
“You Americans say, to be fired is to be ‘axed’? You know what we say in Korea? Off with your head!”
Ever since the release of “Oldboy” in 2003, Park Chan-wook has been one of the preeminent filmmakers working out of South Korea. After finishing his two most recent and critically acclaimed films, 2016’s “The Handmaiden” and 2022’s “Decision to Leave,” he decided to adapt the thriller novel “The Ax” by Donald Westlake. What resulted is one of the best movies of the entire year.
The plot follows a paper company executive named You Man-su (played by Lee Byung-hun, who voiced Gwi-ma in “K-Pop Demon Hunters” and played the Front Man in “Squid Game”) who was recently laid off from his job. He lives with his wife Lee Mi-ri (played by Son Ye-jin), their cello playing daughter Ri-one (played by Choi So-yul) and his son Si-one (played by Kim Woo-seung) and they are in danger of defaulting on their mortgage and losing their family home. When his constant rounds of interviews and therapy are going nowhere, Man-su devises a scheme in which he sets up a fake job application to systematically identify and eliminate his most qualified competitors to ensure that he is the best candidate alive.
Lee Byung-hun delivers an absolutely incredible performance, going from dramatic and emotional beats to spurts of action and great physical comedy. The rest of his victims are also all very good, as the film divides itself into several different arcs, each of which ends with another person being killed. Their motivations and performance against Man-su are both heartbreaking and deeply comic.
On multiple different occasions, this film had me laughing my ass off. The screenplay is both biting and deeply satirical. It’s the funniest film that I have seen in years and if you enjoyed the dark humor in the first half of the 2019 Best Picture winner “Parasite,” you will be in for a hell of a good time.
The film’s cinematography was also some of the most inventive and visually stunning of any movie this year. The way in which Park Chan-wook can simply frame a cellphone conversation or a character drinking a glass of beer is both so interesting to watch and so self-evidently brilliant that it makes you feel like this should be the new default for how films are all shot.
The film was a major awards contender at the Golden Globes, where it received three nominations, including Best Foreign Language Film, Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical and Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. It did not win any of them, and it was unfortunately snubbed at the Oscars for even a Best International Feature nomination. While I do love watching the Academy Awards each year, there is always something that completely blanks, but time will still remember the films that deserve it in the end.
Still, this is easily the best film that I have seen all year and if any of you are looking for a good time at the theater, I would highly recommend buying a ticket to watch this film. My final rating for “No Other Choice” is a transcendent 10/10.
