Review: No Other Choice
What happens when progress demands a price too high for humanity to pay?
Words Jewel Chuaunsu
Photo courtesy of No Other Choice
November 04, 2025
The protagonist of No Other Choice, Man-soo (Lee Byung-hun) begins the movie believing he has it all—his loving wife Miri (Son Ye-jin), wonderful children, his dream home, and a long-term career in the paper industry. But when an American company takes over his company and conducts mass layoffs, his seemingly perfect life begins to unravel.
At first, he believes that within three months, he’ll find another job. But as time drags on, months turn into a year, and he’s still unemployed. His family is forced to simplify their lifestyle, try to sell their home, and start over. As desperation grows, he hatches a drastic plan to get back into his industry—a plan that shows just how far someone might go when they feel like they have no other choice.
Directed by Park Chan-wook, the film is a dark comedy about the brutality of the job market—absurd and funny in moments, yet painfully relatable. Beneath the humor lies a sharp critique of capitalism and modern working life, where loyalty is discarded in favor of profit margins, and where human labor is increasingly seen as expendable in the face of automation and AI.
The movie exposes the emptiness behind corporate talk about loyalty and hard work, showing how, in reality, owners and executives are focused only on the bottom line. As the characters repeat throughout the film, there’s “no other choice.”
The film uses its biting satire to expose how this corporate ruthlessness trickles down, creating a toxic culture and poisoning relationships. Instead of uniting against an unfair system, those who suffer under it end up turning on one another in a desperate race to survive.
The movie also touches on the threat of AI and automation—how human beings become disposable when machines can work faster, cheaper, and without getting tired. It makes you question what we lose in the name of progress, efficiency, and profit. What’s the cost when human lives and dignity no longer matter?
Darkly funny, sharply observant, and hauntingly relevant, No Other Choice holds up a mirror to our times.
CreaZion Studios is bringing No Other Choice—the Oscar-buzzing Korean thriller by master director Park Chan-wook and South Korea’s official entry to the 98th Academy Awards—to Philippine cinemas starting October 29.
