No Other Choice
Park Chan-wook
A slow burn dark comedy with some whacky twists and turns. But it's from the Old Boy director so you know it ratchets up to some hellish and hilarious moments.
Theater · Black Comedy · ~2h19m
No Other Choice is an exceptional film, and is quite possibly my favorite this year (it's a 2025 film but i watched it in January so if you're a pedant, quiet your mind and try to carry that lesson far in life).
Everything about this movie is solid, so shout out to the director on another masterful production. But cinematography stood exceptionally high. But again, exceptional could be used for the performances and the story and everything else.
Some of my own amusement was the look it gave me into the paper products industry. It was the perfect backdrop for everything it played with, e.g. employment, family dynamics, the usual full spectrum of human experience explored in great movies like this, etc. But I've ironically become a bit fixated on pens and paper quality since watching this. I believe they're even more complementary to the current "directing software to do things on your behalf" nature of the world we now live in. But I digress.
The movie is chunked up into some clearly delineated acts that stretch the story arc excellently before ultimately landing it perfectly. And there's plenty of darkness alongside the comedy that'll continue to reveal itself as the world works through what's being warned about here.
I strongly recommend this and hope neither you nor I nor anyone else ever experiences these things. But it was great fun to watch.
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