Mubi Monday: No Other Choice (2025)

If you can remember the last time that director Park Chan-wook delivered anything less than a brilliant feature then you have a better memory than I do. Or maybe you just have more discerning taste. I'd be willing to bet on the former though. Has Chan-wook ever been underwhelming? I think not. And No Other Choice  is another winner.

Lee Byung-hun plays Man-su, a papermaking company employee who finds himself in financial dire straits when he is laid off. It's not long until his wife (Mi-ri, played by Son Ye-jin) takes charge of the situation, explaining to Man-su and their two children that they'll have to cancel a number of extra-curricular activities, temporarily rehome the family pets, and sell their home before it is taken away from them by the bank anyway. Man-su doesn't want to lose the home he worked so hard to own. He eventually comes up with a plan to find his main competitors in the job market . . . and kill them.

What you may think is simply a thriller with a rich vein of dark comedy through it is actually a damning look at the treatment of workers by companies consistently chasing cheaper working methods and bigger profits. It's also a thriller with a rich vein of dark comedy through it, and many viewers may be surprised to find that it's based on a novel, "The Ax", by Donald E. Westlake, but the scenes that bookend the film really hammer home a point about the mistreatment of people by the bosses who end up wielding far too much power over them. 

As well as his usual excellent direction, Chan-wook also once again collaborates on the screenplay with Jahye Lee, as well as being joined by Lee Kyoung-mi and Don McKellar this time around. Despite the 139-minute runtime, it feels perfectly paced, allowing time for Man-su to be sorely impacted by his downturn in fortune, time for him to come up with a deadly plan, and plenty of time to show him working out how best to deal with each potential victim. Everyone gets treated equally, which helps, and we're shown how Mi-ri is affected by things, how the children deal with the situation, and even how each of the victims spends their time, whether they're in a good place or not.

Byung-hun is as good as you'd expect him to be in the lead role. If you've seen him in any other role then you will already know his talent. Ye-jin is equally good alongside him, and both Woo Seung Kim and So Yul Choi do well as the younger family members. Lee Sung-min and Yeom Hye-ran are interesting and entertaining as a married couple who end up targeted by our leading man when he starts putting his plan into action, Cha Seung-won is enjoyable as a more timid character, and Park Hee-soon has fun as the kind of individual you really hope to see get their comeuppance before the end credits roll. 

The cinematography from Kim Woo-hyung has some moments that allow for a helping of beauty alongside some of the macabre developments, the music from Jo Yeong-wook is wonderful throughout, and every little detail, whether it's vital or not, helps to make the whole film feel cared for and classy. I loved it, and I could happily rewatch it immediately. Like almost every other Park Chan-wook film I could mention.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Decision To Leave (2022)

To lose someone you love is careless. To lose two starts to become a major problem. This movie, another from master director Park Chan-wook (and, yes, I believe we can easily refer to him as a master director by now), is a film soaked in suspicion. But that is only one part of it. It is also a dark romance, and a study of loneliness, determination, and how love takes many forms.

Park Hae-il plays a married detective who ends up drawn into the investigation of a death that could either be a murder or a suicide. Things get more complicated when he meets the man’s widow (played by Tang Wei), a young Chinese migrant who was clearly mistreated throughout her marriage. The two grow close, helped along by the fact that our lead only sees his wife (Lee Jung-hyung) once a week. But this potential love affair seems doomed from the start, not least because any relationship between a detective and the prime suspect in a murder investigation would lead to a serious conflict of interest. Time passes, viewers see this central relationship go through a number of big ups and downs, and there’s eventually another crime that seriously tests the faith that both leads may have in one another.

Co-written by Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-kyeong, Decision To Leave is a frankly superb study of people transforming themselves in a variety of ways, whether that is helped by someone else or whether it is a transformation created by sheer self-will and the ability to do whatever is required to completely change your circumstances. The title refers to any number of moments within the film, and it is the motivation behind the decisions being made that keeps you on your toes as the plot twists and turns from one version of the truth to the next.

As director, Chan-wook also ensures that he uses a number of effective tricks to liven up what could have otherwise been fairly straightforward, and maybe even dull, sequences. The best example of this is when one character is observing another, being seated in a car and peering through some binoculars, but depicted onscreen as being directly beside their oblivious “target” while they narrate the mundanity of their standard schedule. There’s also an impressive refusal to paint any one character as simplistically good or bad, even a more dangerous criminal being pursued for his part in a violent crime of passion, and the end of the film will leave many conflicted, but in a good way. There is much to mull over here, and Decision To Leave celebrates what it shows as a real, loving, connection between people, despite sketching out a background of pain and problems.

Hae-il and Wei are both excellent in their main roles. The former convincingly portrays someone who seems to find a strange peace and comfort after years spent dealing with insomnia and obsession, while the latter is someone that it is easy to root for, despite not always being depicted in the best light (to put it mildly). Jyung-hung also does good work, as do a number of other supporting cast members, but our two leads spend many scenes focusing on one another, often zoning out other people, which helps us to feel as if they are the only two people who matter in the world being presented onscreen.

I don’t think this is perfect, but I could well change my mind on that after a repeat viewing. It’s damn close though. The performances, the clean and lush visual style (a rooftop confrontation stands out as especially impressive, as well as en extended “reveal” at about the mid-point), the accompanying score by Jo Yeong-wook, there’s nothing I would think to change here. Everyone should make a decision to see this. ASAP.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Lady Vengeance (2005)

The last instalment of Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy, Lady Vengeance is a deceptively light tale that leads to a finale that allows viewers to question what vengeance really brings, be it closure, catharsis, guilt, dissatisfaction, or any other number of feelings.

Lee Young-ae plays Lee Geum-ja, a young woman who is released from prison at the start of the film. She has served a 13-year sentence for the kidnap and murder of a small boy, and throughout that time she has been coming up with a grand plan and building up a store of favours. Because, as becomes clear quite early on, she wasn't the person responsible for the horrific crime. Despite confessing to it.

The first script collaboration between Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-kyeong, Lady Vengeance is a well-constructed piece of work that skirts close to being a mystery before showing you all of the cards quite early on. You have questions during the opening act, those are answered during the middle section, and the third act sets everything out, as our lead does for other characters, and shows a stark choice to be made, one that will reverberate through the lives of others for many years to come.

Although there are many interesting supporting characters here, with one of the most memorable being a spiteful and abusive prisoner named "The Witch" (played by Go Soo-hee), Lady Vengeance never loses focus of the main characters. You have Lee Geum-ja, Detective Choi (Nam Il-woo), who was never convinced of her guilt, and Mr. Baek (Choi Min-sik, returning for a smaller, but no less vital, role after his peerless turn in Oldboy).

What Chan-wook and Seo-kyeong do so well is the detailing and forward momentum of the script. Even as you perhaps have to play a bit of catch up, reminding yourself of who various characters are between the present and the past, there's a narration to help, as well as various signifiers telling you what plot point any particular sequence is revolving around. Whether it's a dream sequence, a memory, or simply a scene showing you something happening that seems out of the blue, there's always enough within the frame to stop viewers getting totally lost.

Young-ae is a great protagonist, she is a perfect mix of sweet, innocent, scheming, and absolute ruthlessness. Il-woo is a nice addition to the core group, showing how frustrating it must be to go along with a majority verdict while you have no concrete evidence to back up your own feeling on the matter. And then you have Min-sik, being horrible, and doing so well at it. Kim Si-hoo also deserves a mention, playing Geun-shik, a young man who would have been about the same age as the murdered child, and a co-worker that is drawn into a relationship with our lead.

The previous two instalments showed how vengeance affects individuals, in a way, while this shows how it can bond together a group of people, for better or worse. It remains a lighter look at things, compared to the other movies, but that's down to the deceptive direction from Chan-wook, who uses every trick in the book to keep you entertained and enthralled throughout, with the exception of one or two moments that stop things and turn your face to look directly at the consequences of what is being done. And that is the brilliance of this final instalment of what is an unmissable cinematic trilogy.

8/10

This is a set you may want to pick up.

Mubi Monday: Oldboy (2003)

The second (and many would rate it as the best) instalment of  Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy, Oldboy is a film I deliberately haven't revisited in many years. I was always waiting for the right time, and I always wanted to watch it as part of the trilogy, compared to my first viewing, when I was blown away by the film, then saw Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance some time later, and eventually saw Lady Vengeance when that was released later.

Choi Min-sik plays Oh Dae-su, a man who is snatched off the street and imprisoned in a room for fifteen years. He doesn't know who his captor is, nor does he know why he was chosen for the punishment. When he is released, again without any explanation, he sets out to find out who was responsible for taking such a large chunk of his life from him. On the plus side, he meets and falls in love with a young woman named Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung). On the downside, he sets off on a path of revenge that may not lead to the resolution he wants. It may, in fact, lead to a realisation that his time alone in that room was only part of his punishment.

Oldboy is a film with a few amazing set-pieces helping to make it unforgettable. If you've not seen the film already then you've still probably heard about moments from it, be it the eating of a live octopus, the dental trauma, the astonishing corridor fight between a number of men and a hammer-wielding Min-sik, or even the details of the ending (I would never discuss such things, but you may have read or heard something spoilerific by now, especially if you're a fan of Asian cinema). Thankfully, the film doesn't JUST rely on those moments. Based on a manga of the same name, and adapted into film form by Chan-wook, Hwang Jo-yun, and Lim Jun-hyung, the entire movie is a carefully constructed puzzle, full of tense moments as you become more and more invested in the central characters and hope to see no further harm befalling them.

Min-sik is an absolute tour-de-force in the lead role, starting as a useless drunkard detained by police, becoming the traumatised prisoner, and then turning into the survivor consumed by a need for explanation and revenge. Hye-jung is very good in a role that could have easily felt too fake and contrived, and the goodness she emanates is something that reverberates through the finale, lending more impact to every plot development that feels like a very hard slap in the face. Yoo Ji-tae is suitably conniving and confident as the main figure taking his amusement in working the main character like a puppet. That's not a spoiler. The reveal of who is ultimately responsible for such prolonged imprisonment and torture is not really a big deal once it becomes clear that the main question to ask is why? The other main actors worth mentioning are Kim Byeong-ok, playing a bodyguard to Ji-tae's character, and Oh Dal-su as an employee who oversaw the day to day running of the prison.

But it's hard to deny that this is Chan-wook's film all the way. He may have gathered up some great players, drawing what may well remain a career-best turn from Min-sik, but his attention to detail, his audacity in the execution of the material, and the choices made while leading viewers to what I consider to be one of the best third act reveals of all time, while also leaving enough ambiguity for everyone to provide their own interpretations, all come together to make this his masterpiece (and that is despite stiff competition from the likes of Thirst and The Handmaiden).

If you can only ever see one Park Chan-wook film then make it this trilogy. Because you cannot JUST see one Park Chan-wook film. You should see them all. This is his best film, but it's all the better because of it also being the central point between two other damn fine movies.

10/10

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Mubi Monday: Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002)

Despite this not being his first film, and despite Joint Security Area getting a fair amount of appreciation when it was released, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance is essentially where it all began for Park Chan-wook. Or rather, to be fair, this film helped to establish his reputation, and it was then one that a lot of people revisited after being stunned by the brilliance of Oldboy.

The first part of his Vengeance Trilogy (this, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance), Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance is the least bombastic of the three films, a quiet start to what would become an essential touchstone for fans of South Korean cinema.

Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun) is the main character, a deaf-mute factory worker trying to make enough money to pay for a kidney transplant that his sister desperately needs. Ryu ends up convinced by his anarchist girlfriend, Cha Yeong-mi (Bae Doona), that their problems can be solved by a kidnapping. Unlike other kidnappers, they will look after the child and hand her back, unharmed and happy, once they have received their money. There's already a child picked, young Yu-sun (Im Ji-eun), the daughter of Park Dong-jin (Song Kang-ho), a man who is connected to the employers who so recently laid off Ryu. Things inevitably don't go to plan.

It's probably the cool thing nowadays to cite this as your favourite of the Vengeance Trilogy, to claim it's the best one before Chan-wook got distracted by cinematic tricks and stylistic flourishes. It certainly remains an impressively unique and small-scale crime drama, showing someone engaged in a crime who isn't really a bad person. Not really. In a sequence of events you could easily describe as neo-noirish, Ryu is led into this plan by a "femme fatale", finds himself quickly out of his depth, and has no one he can turn to as he tries to tidy things up, leading to a third act full of danger and death.

Chan-wook knows the genre elements well enough, and allows them to feel fresh thanks to the central characters. Ryu is the sort of selfless and caring figure that will actually give up one of his own organs to help a loved one, except his blood type doesn't match, so it's quite heartbreaking to see things unravel in a way that we know is unlikely to end well for anyone involved.

Ha-kyun is great in the lead role, authentic and sweet without overplaying anything. Doona works well alongside him. They're mismatched, but also believable. Youn Ji-eun is very sweet as the girl who ends up kidnapped, and Kang-ho is a strong and menacing presence once he starts making moves to find the kidnappers in the second half of the film.

Although I still think that the next two movies supercede this one, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance is a cracking film that deserves your time. It's different from so many others you will see in this genre, and the ending lands some powerful blows, all effectively painful because of the connection you get with the main characters.

8/10

Get this while you can.

The Handmaiden (2016)

The Handmaiden is one of those films that you want to discuss with people as soon as it ends. Which is unfortunate, because the beauty of it, apart from the absolutely gorgeous visuals throughout, comes from watching events unfold, and enjoying every twist and turn. So I'll try not to give too much away here, which may mean a plot summary is briefer than usual.

Basically, a conman (Ha Jung-woo, portraying a character who goes by the name of Count Fujiwara) wants to woo a young woman (Lady Hideko, played by Kim Min-hee). Lady Hideko is set to eventually marry her uncle (Cho Jin-woong), which will allow him to get his hands on her fortune, because it's known to a few people that he aims to have her declared insane soon after their marriage. And that's where the handmaiden of the title comes in. Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri) is a skilled deceiver and thief, hired by the conman to work for, and befriend, Lady Hideko, helping to sway her opinion and convince her that she is falling in love with the Count.

Directed by Park Chan-wook, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Chung Seo-Kyung (based on the novel "Fingersmith", by Sarah Waters), The Handmaiden is every bit as good as you have already heard it is. It's engrossing, the plotting is superb, and it explores various sexual and power dynamics in a way that can become quite graphic without ever feeling tasteless or exploitative.

Separated into three distinct segments, this is a perfect example of how runtime doesn't really matter when the story is strong enough. Running at approximately 144 minutes, in the standard cut (there's also an extended version to check out, and I will), this really flies by as viewers are thrown into the initial situation before getting to know the characters, and then being shown a different perspective on things. I wouldn't say that all of the twists and turns are completely unpredictable, rather they pile up in a way that makes things much more satisfying for viewers. The rug being pulled out from under your feet can be enjoyable cinematically, but it's somehow even more enjoyable to have that rug pulled out and a different one placed under you by a dextrous expert.

As well as the great script, direction, cinematography, and musical score, the performances are no small help in drawing you in and making this a wonderful viewing experience. Tae-ri and Min-hee are the leads, essentially, and play their parts beautifully. Both are 100% believable, even as they run through a variety of motivations and emotions. Jung-woo and Jin-woong also do fantastic work, working well with their relatively single-minded characters. Kim Hae-sook and Moon So-ri have much smaller roles, the former being quite nasty and the latter quite lovely, but both also make an impact with their turns.

I am not sure what is holding me back from giving this a perfect score. I suspect that I have to rewatch it some time and see how well it all holds up, but there's every chance that future viewings will elevate this to absolute modern classic status. Which allows Park Chan-wook to remain one of my absolute favourite directors working today. I have seen about 6 or 7 of his movies, and none of them have been anything less than very good indeed. I'll always be keen to see what he next gives us. In the meantime, maybe I should get ready to watch the extended version of this film.

9/10

Buy this lovely edition here.
Americans can buy a disc here.