December 6, 2025 – This crazy madcap dark comedy about murdering the competition is both wickedly funny and deadly serious. As crazy as it is, this movie has something serious to say about ancient social traditions crashing into the ruthless reality of modern capitalism.

Korean director Park Chan-wook (“Decision to Leave”) has crafted a madcap comedy about competition, tradition and murder in the paper industry. The story is based on “The Ax,” a 1997 American novel by Donald E. Westlake, which was made into a French film “Le couperet” (The Cleaver) 20 years ago.

The No Other Choice screenplay was co-written by Park Chan-wook, along with Lee Kyoung-mi, Jahye Lee and Don McKellar. The story follows Yoo Man-su (played by Lee Byung-hun of “ I Saw the Devil”) a man happily married to the beautiful Miri (Son Ye-jin of “The Last Princess”) and the proud father of a precocious daughter, Ri-one and troubled son Si-one.

The family is thrown into chaos when Man-su is laid off from his high paying job as a manager at Solar Paper after the company is bought by Americans who downsize the staff to save money. For months, he tries to find another high paying job, until his severance money runs out. Man-su and Miri together are unable to find jobs with a salaries large enough to maintain the family's lifestyle. The family is forced to sell the family home, along with some other prized possessions.

Man-su is a proud, award-winning, highly skilled man with an advanced education and 25 years of experience, but he finds himself expendable, and that drives him crazy. Suffering from a constant toothache, his daughter inconsolable after the family dogs are sent off to live with Miri's parents and his son caught stealing items from a store to try to raise money for the family, Man-su goes off the rails. He hatches an elaborate plan to get a high-paying job at another paper company by killing three men seeking the same job, who are better candidates for the job.

His plans to kill the men don't go smoothly at all. In fact some of Man-su's schemes turn into comedies of errors. It is a wild adventure, with police sniffing around him, and Man-su's wife and son becoming suspicious of his late night excursions to hunt his competitors, and secretly burying things in the garden.

This movie is not just a story about the lengths a man will go to in order to provide for his family, but it also highlights the bleak future of manufacturing jobs in a world where human workers are being replaced by artificial intelligence and robots. This film rates a B+

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