No Other Choice, South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s latest film, begins almost pastorally, an idyll of present-day domestic tranquility as Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) dines alfresco with his family. Their main course includes eel, a gift from Solar Paper, the company that’s employed Man-su for the past quarter century. The surrounding nature is positively bucolic, buttressed by leafy trees and blooming flowers. When the meal ends, Man-su gathers his family—wife Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), stepson Si-one, daughter Ri-one, and two large dogs—in a collective hug. It’s as good as it gets. One can almost hear the “dun-dun-DUN” chords as the precipitous downhill slide begins.

And oh, what a slide. The Americans and their zest for downsizing have come for Solar Paper, and Man-su is summarily laid off. A vow to find work within three months is easily shattered. More than a year passes by; the family can only economize so much. Man-su’s controlled rage grows and grows as he endures life-coaching workshops, begs former colleagues to hire him, and swallows his pride to work retail.

No Other Choice, South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s latest film, begins almost pastorally, an idyll of present-day domestic tranquility as Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) dines alfresco with his family. Their main course includes eel, a gift from Solar Paper, the company that’s employed Man-su for the past quarter century. The surrounding nature is positively bucolic, buttressed by leafy trees and blooming flowers. When the meal ends, Man-su gathers his family—wife Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), stepson Si-one, daughter Ri-one, and two large dogs—in a collective hug. It’s as good as it gets. One can almost hear the “dun-dun-DUN” chords as the precipitous downhill slide begins.

And oh, what a slide. The Americans and their zest for downsizing have come for Solar Paper, and Man-su is summarily laid off. A vow to find work within three months is easily shattered. More than a year passes by; the family can only economize so much. Man-su’s controlled rage grows and grows as he endures life-coaching workshops, begs former colleagues to hire him, and swallows his pride to work retail.

As his middle-class life collapses, the unthinkable becomes possible: Why not kill the potential competition? Why not cross every moral line to salvage a way of life that would be too humiliating to lose? All it takes is setting up a fake company, poring through resumes, and choosing the best candidates—to eliminate, not to hire.

Lee, as the ordinary man turned multiple murderer by circumstances both within and beyond his control, captures the viewer’s attention from the first: We want to root for him to succeed in his misbegotten quest........

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