According to The Verge, director Park Chan-wook’s 12th feature film, No Other Choice, is a dark comedy thriller about a man, Man-su, who murders his qualified competitors after being laid off from a paper company. The film, an adaptation of Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax, took Park a staggering 16 years to make, with an initial attempt to produce it in Hollywood starting in 2010. Park told the outlet that early feedback from studios doubted audiences would believe the murderous premise, and he consistently received financial offers below what he wanted. The director also revealed he added a contemporary twist involving AI to the ending, a plot point not in his original concept, to highlight the futility of the protagonist’s efforts. Finally, Park shared that the most difficult period of his career was after his first two films failed at the box office, forcing him to work as a film critic to support his family.
The 16-Year Grind
Here’s the thing about Park Chan-wook: he’s stubborn. The fact that he nursed this project for 16 years, turning down underwhelming offers and waiting for the right moment, tells you everything about his artistic integrity. He tried the Hollywood route first, which makes total sense for a story set in America. But the notes from studios were classic Hollywood—they didn’t think audiences would buy that a guy would kill for a job. Seems like they underestimated both the desperation of the modern economy and Park’s ability to make the absurd feel terrifyingly logical. The delay, ironically, is what allowed the film to become even more relevant. By the time he got to make it, he could inject that AI ending, which basically turns the whole story into a brutal cosmic joke.
Fear Is the Engine
What’s fascinating is how personally Park connects to the film’s core anxiety, even though he’s never been fired. His description of the constant, low-grade fear that accompanies every project—from planning to box office report—is brutally honest. It’s not just about failure; it’s about becoming unhireable, about not being able to raise money again. That’s the real virus in creative industries, and honestly, in most professional fields now. He basically admits that Man-su’s desperation, while extreme, is an amplification of a very real terror. When he says he imagined what he might be capable of in that scenario, it’s not a confession. It’s an invitation for the audience to sit with that uncomfortable question. And that’s where the film’s power comes from.
AI, The Ultimate Insult
The AI angle is a masterstroke. In the interview, Park frames it perfectly: Man-su painstakingly eliminates his human rivals, only to walk into a workplace where his real competition isn’t a person at all. It’s a system. It makes his horrific actions not just morally bankrupt, but utterly pointless—a “colossal wasted effort.” Park’s own stance on using AI in filmmaking is crystal clear: “I hope that never happens.” But he’s not a purist about it for young filmmakers; he acknowledges the economic reality that if it’s a tool that lets them create, who can stop them? His objection seems deeper. It’s about the soul of the craft. Using AI would be, in the context of his own film, another form of surrendering to the very system that devalues human effort.
Building Worlds From Oven Mitts
I love the detail about the Easter eggs, or what Park prefers to call world-building for the actors. The oven mitt used in a murder reappearing in the family kitchen? The staged family photo with a Santa costume from a crime scene? That’s not just clever for the audience. It’s about constructing a tangible, believable reality so the actors can live in it. For a film that swings between brutal comedy and domestic tragedy, that tactile realism is everything. It grounds the insanity. It also shows a director who cares about the entire ecosystem of the story, down to the props on a shelf. That meticulousness is probably why he can get away with such a wild premise. You believe the world, so you start to believe, just for a second, that a man might actually do this. And that’s the most terrifying part of all.
