No Other Choice () is a 2025 South Korean black comedy thriller film co-written, produced, and directed by Park Chan-wook. Based on The Ax by Donald Westlake, the film stars Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, and Cha Seung-won. It is the second film adaptation of the novel, after the 2005 French-language feature The Axe directed by Costa-Gavras, to whom No Other Choice is dedicated in the closing credits. The film follows a desperate paper industry expert who decides to kill off his competition to be assured of the job he seeks to maintain his way of life.
The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on 29 August 2025, where it garnered critical acclaim. At the 83rd Golden Globe Awards, it was nominated for Best Motion Picture â Musical or Comedy, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor in a Motion Picture â Musical or Comedy (Lee Byung-hun). It was also selected as the South Korean entry for the Best International Feature Film category for the 98th Academy Awards, making the December shortlist, but was not nominated.
No Other Choice had its domestic premiere as the opening film of the 30th Busan International Film Festival on 17 September, followed by its theatrical release in South Korea on 24 September by CJ Entertainment. It grossed a total of $19,881,918 in South Korea becoming the third highest-grossing film in the country in 2025.
Man-su, an award-winning veteran employee of papermaking company Solar Paper, lives happily in luxury with his wife Mi-ri and their two children: Si-one, Mi-ri's teenage son from a previous marriage, and Ri-one, an autistic cello prodigy who won't play in front of her family. However, Solar Paper is bought out by an American company who lay off a number of staff, including a devastated Man-su after he objects to the treatment his subordinates would face. After informing his family, he vows to resume papermaking within three months.
Thirteen months later, Man-su is doing low-paid retail work, having found no success applying for jobs in the papermaking industry. His family is forced to minimize their spending, including rehoming their two dogs to Mi-ri's parents, which causes Ri-one to become distressed and withdrawn. Ri-one's cello teacher recommends her for expensive advanced classes. Unable to pay the mortgage, the family risks having to sell Man-su's beloved childhood home, likely to the parents of Si-one's friend Dong-ho. Mi-ri takes a part-time job as a dental assistant to suave male dentist Jin-ho, who attends the same dance classes Man-su and Mi-ri had to quit in order to save money. Man-su suffers a toothache that he ignores, unable to afford the dental bills.
Man-su attempts to join the successful company Moon Paper, but is humiliated by manager Seon-chul. Wanting his job, Man-su nearly kills Seon-chul using a potted plant but abandons the attempt when he realises killing Seon-chul will not matter unless he is the best candidate to replace him, instead buying a fake job advertisement to identify his competitors. From the applications he receives, Man-su identifies two men whose credentials exceed his own: Beom-mo and Si-jo. Man-su retrieves his father's Vietnam War gun, deciding to kill Seon-chul, Beom-mo, and Si-jo to eliminate the competition.
Man-su first plans to murder the unemployed drunkard Beom-mo. Whilst spying on his house from the woods, he is bitten by a snake and is treated by Beom-mo's dissatisfied wife, A-ra. Man-su and Beom-mo separately discover A-ra's infidelity. Man-su confronts Beom-mo at gunpoint, with Beom-mo mistaking Man-su as A-ra's lover. Man-su, Beom-mo, and A-ra struggle over Man-su's gun. A-ra shoots Beom-mo dead, and Man-su narrowly escapes.
Man-su arrives late to a costumed dance party, where he watches Mi-ri dance with Jin-ho as Man-su was late. Angered, Man-su returns to Beom-mo's residence, where A-ra and her lover have buried Beom-mo and the gun. Man-su retrieves the gun. Back home, Man-su and Mi-ri accuse each other of infidelity before reconciling.
Man-su visits Si-jo at the shoe store where he works, and tricks Si-jo into staying late at work by claiming he wishes to buy shoes for his daughter. He then pretends to have car trouble on the highway where Si-jo passes on his way home. After Si-jo stops to help, Man-su reluctantly shoots him dead, hiding his corpse in Man-su's car.
Meanwhile, Si-one and Dong-ho steal iPhones from Dong-ho's father's store to resell, but the police arrest them. Man-su and Mi-ri blackmail Dong-ho's father, who had used the store for his own infidelity, into having Dong-ho confess that he is the main culprit. Detectives visit Man-su to warn him of Beom-mo and Si-jo's disappearances, which police linked to their common circumstances. While smoking on the roof of the house, Si-one witnesses Man-su in his greenhouse trying to dismember Si-jo's corpse with a chainsaw. Unable to do so, Man-su buries the corpse in his garden, alongside Si-one's stolen iPhones, and plants an apple tree.
Man-su visits Seon-chul's home to befriend him. While plying Seon-chul with alcohol, Man-su is forced to break his own sobriety, leading Man-su to forcefully extract his cavity-filled tooth. Meanwhile, Si-one confesses his concerns to Mi-ri about what he saw, and begins having nightmares about the sound of the chainsaw. Mi-ri digs up the apple tree to find Si-jo's corpse, and calls Man-su with her concerns. Determined to protect his family, and emboldened by Mi-ri's declaration that she is willing to be an accomplice, Man-su refuses to change his path. He then murders Seon-chul by suffocating him and stages it to look like the drunken Seon-chul choked to death on his own vomit. To spare him the truth, Mi-ri tells Si-one that Man-su dismembered a pig and buried it to nourish the apple tree. Man-su returns home, and shares a tense reconciliation with Mi-ri.
Moon Paper decides to hire Man-su to replace Seon-chul. This allows the family to keep their home and reunite with their dogs, reducing Ri-one's antisocial behavior. The detectives visit Man-su, revealing that A-ra has implicated Beom-mo as a gun-owner; they therefore suspect he murdered Si-jo and subsequently went on the run, lifting suspicion off Man-su. Mi-ri and Si-one hear Ri-one playing her cello to the dogs. At work, Man-su celebrates alone in a modern paper mill run by machines instead of workers.
During the 14th Busan International Film Festival in 2009, it was announced that Park would remake Costa-Gavras's 2005 film The Axe. Park would later clarify that he had read Donald Westlake's 1997 novel The Ax upon which the film was based and decided to adapt it prior to knowing about Costa-Gavras's film. However, the project was delayed when Park received the screenplay for his 2012 film Stoker. In 2012, Park said he planned to make the film his next project but it still needed "more work on the casting and attracting investors".
During a live discussion with Costa-Gavras at the 24th Busan International Film Festival in 2019, Park told audiences that he was still working on his adaptation of Westlake's novel. The film was described by Park as a "lifetime project" and that while he hadn't begun filming it yet, he wished "to make this film as my masterpiece". Gavras, who still held the rights to the book, had helped Park to develop the project. The film was set to be an English-language picture, with Don McKellar co-writing the script alongside Park.
Park's team told The Hollywood Reporter that he was approaching the project with the intent to "strengthen the moral dilemma in this story as much as possible, and he will increase the role of protagonist's wife".
At the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Park stated that the project was still in development and followed "a heartbreaking story about a middle-aged man who lost a job, and now he needs to bring the bread to the table to feed his family. So, he struggles in the process of looking for a job in a specialized field, and he becomes a serial killer."
In March 2024, Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin were announced as the film's leads. Park and Son previously worked together in the 2016 movie The Truth Beneath, while Park collaborated with Lee on Joint Security Area (2000). Park revealed that the film would now be set in Korea.
In August 2024, Park's frequent collaborators Lee Kyoung-mi and Lee Ja-hye were also announced as writers on the project.
Principal photography began in August 2024. Filming wrapped in January 2025, lasting a total of five months.
The film's soundtrack includes classical, Korean pop ballads, and American soul music. The opening credits and the first few minutes of the opening scene feature Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23. "Redpepper Dragonfly" by Cho Yong-pil, "Let's Walk On" by Kim Chang-wan, and "Le badinage" by Marin Marais feature in the film.
In June 2025, Neon acquired North American distribution rights to No Other Choice, with Mubi taking rights to the film in the U.K., Ireland, Latin America, Spain, Turkey, the SAARC, Australia, New Zealand and the Benelux, the latter in association with its subsidiary Cinéart. According to CJ ENM and Moho Film, the film was pre-sold to over 200 countries around the world, including North America, the UK, France, Germany, and Japan. It surpasses the pre-sale record of 192 countries held by Park Chan-wook's 2022 film Decision to Leave.
The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on 29 August 2025. It had its North American premiere on 5 September 2025 at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where Lee Byung-hun received a Special Tribute Award at the TIFF Tribute Awards event. It was also screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2025 Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival, Sudbury, Ontario, on 17 September 2025.
It opened the 30th Busan International Film Festival on 17 September 2025, where both Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin were honoured with the "Actors' house", a special career retrospective. Theatrical release in South Korea followed on 24 September, by CJ Entertainment. The film was screened in IMAX theaters in South Korea, while in the United States, a one-night screening was held on 8 December.
On 4 October 2025, No Other Choice was presented in the "Galas & Special Presentations" and "Spotlight on Korea" sections at the 2025 Vancouver International Film Festival. It had its US premiere at the Main Slate of 2025 New York Film Festival on 12 October 2025. On 14 October, the film competed in the 58th Sitges Film Festival in the Oficial Fantàstic Competició section, vying for the various awards given in the section. It was presented in the Galas section of the 2025 BFI London Film Festival on 15 October 2025, and would also be screened as a late addition to the Adelaide Film Festival on 24 October, and in the Special Presentations of the 61st Chicago International Film Festival on 25 October 2025.
It was screened in the Masters section of the 2025 Stockholm International Film Festival on 12 November 2025, and in the "From the Festivals â 2025" section of the 56th International Film Festival of India in November 2025.
No Other Choice recouped its 17 billion won production budget before its release through overseas presales, making its financial success unaffected by its domestic performance.
The film was released on 24 September 2025 on 2,114 screens. It opened at the top recording 331,518 viewers on its opening day at the Korean box office. The film achieved the highest opening of all time for a film directed by Park, surpassing Decision to Leave and his highest-grossing film The Handmaiden. On 28 September, it surpassed 1 million cumulative viewers in five days of its release by registering 1,042,800 cumulative audience.
, the film has grossed $39 million worldwide, including million from 2,938,283 domestic admissions only in South Korea.
After earning a nine-minute standing ovation and applause at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, The Dong-A Ilbo stated that the film left a significant mark on the Korean film industry, receiving rave reviews from international critics and media and helping to revitalize Korean cinema.
The film continued to attract critical acclaim; Variety reported that critics "have hailed No Other Choice as one of Park's most humane and mordantly funny works to date."
Time Out rated the film 5 out of 5 stars, describing it as "a masterful work of cinema which might well be Chan-wook's masterpiece. And given this is the man who directed The Handmaiden that's saying a lot." According to Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, who rated the film 4 stars out of 5, "it may not be Park's masterpiece but it is the best film in the Venice competition so far". Reviewing it for the Financial Times, Danny Leigh sees it as a critique of capitalism, concluding "Capitalism may offer much less choice than advertised, he tells us. The future may take even that away."ÃÂ Eileen Jones of Jacobin praised the film's themes, writing: "atomization, the process by which we are all forced apart into terrifying isolation, so that we each wind up playing a lone hand against the impossible forces of our own creation, has rarely been illustrated with such powerful imagery and narrative clarity."
No Other Choice was selected as the South Korean entry for the Best International Feature Film category for the 98th Academy Awards.