Premiering to instant acclaim at Venice Film Festival earlier this fall, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice will now be coming to the U.S. for a New York Film Festival this week ahead of NEON’s Christmas day release. The adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s The Ax is a black comedy thriller that follows a man laid off from the paper company he worked at for 25 years. Some time later and still jobless, he hits on a solution: to genuinely eliminate his competition. The new trailer has now arrived ahead of its NYFF premiere.
Adapted by Park, Lee Kyung-mi (Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, The Truth Beneath), Don McKellar (The Sympathizer), and Lee Ja-hye (Decision to Leave, The Handmaiden), it features Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, Cha Seung-won, and Yoo Yeon-seok.
Christopher Schobert said in his review, “There’s no telling whether Park Chan-wook is a fan of the Sex Pistols. But during his latest film, No Other Choice, I found myself pondering the line John Lydon memorably uttered during the band’s disastrous final performance in 1978: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” No Other Choice is 139 minutes centered on such a feeling––what it means to be cheated by employers, competitors, and artificial intelligence. It is also about what it takes to fight back––really fight back.”
See the new trailer below.