Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, which marks the Korean filmmaker’s first time playing in the Venice Film Festival competition, scored an 8 1/2-minute ovation Friday after the jet-black comedy thriller’s world premiere.
The 12th movie from the Oldboy, Handmaiden and Decision to Leave writer-director is based on the 1997 novel The Ax by Donald Westlake and follows a man (Squid Game‘s Lee Byung-hun) who is abruptly laid off by the paper company where he worked tirelessly for 25 years. He grows increasingly desperate in his hunt for new work.
The movie also stars Son Yejin (The Last Princess), Park Hee-soon (My Name), Lee Sung-min (The Spy Gone North), Yeom Hye-ran (The Glory), Cha Seung-won (Believer) and Yoo Yeon-seok (Mr. Sunshine).
In his review, Deadline’s Damon Wise called the film “fantastic fun, an endlessly surprising ensemble piece that’s best approached cold.” He had special praise for Lee, calling him “a surprise slapstick master whose presence is an anarchic fusion of Mads Mikkelsen and Buster Keaton.”
Park won Best Director at Cannes in 2022 for Decision to Leave. Recently, he made headlines for being expelled from the Writers Guild of America for allegedly violating strike rules. He and writing partner Don McKellar have pushed back on the union’s characterization of their actions on The Sympathizer in 2023, and as of early August were not appealing the decision.
That issue was not addressed earlier in the day at a jam-packed Venice press conference, where Park fielded questions about the very long gestation of No Other Choice, while his actors discussed working with the master filmmaker.
No Other Choice will open the Busan International Film Festival on September 17. Mubi has international distribution, with Neon handling North America. It will be released in Korea on September 24 and is playing the New York Film Festival next month.
No Other Choice is produced by Park and Back Jisun of Moho Film and Michèle Ray Gavras and Alexandre Gavras of KG Productions, and executive produced by Miky Lee of CJ Group. CJ ENM bankrolled the film.
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