Lee Byung-hun stars in Oldboy director Park Chan-wook’s stylish, blackly comic-looking thriller, No Other Choice. Here’s the first trailer:
Park Chan-wook, the director of Oldboy, Stoker, The Handmaiden and more corkers besides, has a new movie primed for release this year. It’s No Other Choice, a characteristically dark-looking thriller based on a novel called The Ax by Donald Westlake (a writer best known for his Parker series of books).
Transporting the source’s events to present day South Korea, No Other Choice stars Lee Byung-hun (star of I Saw The Devil and Squid Game) as Man Soo, a mild-mannered manager who’s fired from his job at a paper merchant’s. Desperate for work, Man Soo resorts to extreme measures to ensure he has an edge over his competitors.
The same book was previously adapted by another acclaimed director, Costa-Gavras, as The Axe in 2005; Park Chan-wook began planning his own adaptation (or remake, depending on how you look at it) four years later, but actually getting the project going took far longer than he anticipated. In the interim, Park has found international success with a host of other films, often laced with tension and black humour; Lady Vengeance, Thirst, and Decision To Leave among those we haven’t mentioned already.
Park finally shot No Other Choice last year, and it’s expected to make its premiere at this autumn’s Venice Film Festival. In June, boutique movie studio Neon purchased the film’s US rights, while Mubi picked it up for release in several other territories. Although currently listed as ‘coming soon’, it’s likely Park’s latest opus is only a few months away from making its public debut – thus putting it into contention for next year’s awards season.
The teasing first trailer (see below) certainly hints at a contender. Bleak, tense, beautifully framed, and ever so slightly odd. But then, what else should we expect from a filmmaker like Park Chan-wook?
