Movies

Peter Suderman | 1.9.2026 10:20 AM

There's not much in the way of subtlety when it comes to the big themes of Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice. It's a movie about the soulless, zero-sum misery of late capitalism—a sharp, bleak, brutal, and surprisingly funny retort to the idea that corporate power leaves anyone with anything resembling real choice. I'm a libertarian who works for Reason. I have a generally sunny disposition towards both capitalism and corporations, which aren't perfect but have, on the whole, made societies richer and individual life more enjoyable. And yet I rather enjoyed this movie, not because I agreed with its critique of markets, but because it's the sort of ambitious, personal, high-wire film that can only be made in a world where real choice exists. And beyond the surface critique of corporate inhumanity, there's a deeper character study of modern masculinity to be found. 

The setup mixes dark comedy with thriller noir in the way of the Coen brothers or A Simple Plan-era Sam Raimi. Yoo Man-su, a middle-aged man with a beautiful family and a comfy dream home, suddenly finds himself the victim of layoffs after an American company buys his specialty paper factory. He protests to one of the new owners, but is dismissed and told that there was "no other........

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