‘No Other Choice:’ Late Capitalism Gets the Killer Comedy It Deserves – Rolling Stone
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The Great 21st Century Late-Capitalism Comedy Thriller Is Here
No Other Choice follows an unemployed manager driven to murdering potential rivals for a job. Eat your heart out, LinkedIn!
December 23, 2025
Lee Byung-hun in ‘No Other Choice.’ NEON
His name is Man-su, and this middle-class everyman has it all: a beautiful and loving wife, two kids (one of whom is a promising cellist), a sprawling house in the suburbs of Seoul. Not even a questionable mustache can tamper his handsomeness, and even that tonsorial choice gives him a sort of rakish quality; since he’s played by superstar Lee Byung-hun, this fiftysomething husband and father still has a matinee-idol aura around him.
For decades, Man-su been an employee at Solar Paper company, taking extraordinary pride in his work — he’s even won the Pulp Man of the Year award, one of the most prestigious accolades you can get in his industry. Man-su has it all. He is the South Korean success story made manifest.
The news that layoffs are likely to happen now that the Americans have bought the company naturally throws all of the employees into a tizzy, but Man-su has a plan: He will defend his team, prove that they are essential to Solar’s market domination, and the read the riot act to these corporate interlopers who think they can just waltz in and fire everyone. Spoiler: They can just waltz in and fire everyone. Including Man-su. Still, we’re talking about a white-collar dynamo, a leader of men, an indispensable middle-management titan in his field. He’ll bounce back. It’s all going to be a-OK.
Cut to a little over a year later, and Man-su is schlepping away at a menial superstore stocking gig to keep the lights on, still following leads, still hitting up his old contacts for interviews that end in humiliation, still scrambling to regain a foothold in an industry in which he once reigned supreme. Did that Pulp Man of the Year award mean nothing?! His wife Miri (Son Ye-jin, magnificent) is supportive. But she’s also practical. They may need to consider downsizing and selling the house — never mind that this is Man-su’s childhood home. The family dog? He’s one more mouth to feed. Until this employment situation is rectified, all extracurricular activities need to be scaled back. No more cello lessons. No more tennis lessons. Worst of all, they have to cancel their Netflix subscription. After that Rubicon has been crossed, what logical course of action is left for Man-su except murder?
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Crime-lit legend Donald E. Westlake published his novel The Ax, about a desperate Connecticut man driven to desperate (re: homicidal) measures, in 1997 — and to suggest this story is extremely timely in the era of late capitalism would be underselling the book’s timeless, cutthroat vitality.
It’s also a highly transposable story, given that the U.S. doesn’t have a lock on treating workers as expendable and disposable, which is why Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice cuts deep regardless of its geographical swap. (It hits New York and Los Angeles on December 25th. Merry Christmas!)
The fact that the Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance writer-director relocates the story to South Korea does give it a cultural specificity, but some things like dignity, Darwinian notions of survival and death are universal. Things are tough all over everywhere, especially in societies that sell the discreet charms of the bourgeoisie as the dream life, then simply shrug when such comforts are pitilessly snatched away.
See Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ax_(novel)
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