In Korean, there is a custom called 삼년상 (phonetic spelling/pronunciation: Sammy-de). During the Joseon Dynasty, when the father of a family died, it was customary for adult children, even after the funeral, to build a hut near the burial site and live there for at least three years. This represents a child’s way of repaying their parents for the first three years, when they were helpless without their parents’ help. One could certainly still grieve after three years if one wished, but there was a minimal expectation as to how long one would grieve.
I find it fascinating that in Korean culture, there is a “bare minimum” for sadness; there is a linearity of anguish and grief that is embedded in the language itself. I thought of this concept while watching the director Park Chan-wookthe last, “No other choice”, an acerbic and farcical black comedy designed for this era of mass layoffs, silent resignations and a crumbling job market.
Lee Byung Hunin a welcome change from the action hero roles for which he is best known to Western audiences, plays the loyal and well-meaning Man-su, a longtime employee of the paper company Solar Paper. When he is unceremoniously fired from his job (“You Americans say that being fired is being “fired?”) [In Korea we say] cut off your head! he saidemphasizing cultural differences in how vocation is intertwined with self-esteem), his sense of identity collapses. When he sees the burden of not being able to financially support his wife, Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), and his children, Si-one (Woo Seung Kim) and Ri-one (So Yul Choi), he hatches a brutal plan to regain his pride: eliminate other candidates for the position he is aiming for.
Of course, the irony of the film’s title is that Man-su has many choices other than murder. Rather than directing his frustrations at the systems that prey on people like him, he harms those with whom he could instead be in community, and his stubbornness to work in a specific field corrupts his imagination, preventing him from considering other means of sourcing.
“The great tragedy of this film is that his rage is aimed at the wrong target; he aims his gun at people who are his double, those like him, those with whom he should empathize the most, instead of the company that fired him in one fell swoop, even after working there for 25 years,” explained director Park.
Over Zoom, Park and Lee, whose words were courtesy of Ji-won Lee and Isue Shin, spoke with RogerEbert.com separately; this piece combines their interviews into one flowing conversation. They revealed the fatal madness of Man-su’s crusade, how the film’s play of light helps us understand the interiority of the characters in a given scene, and how work on the project reshaped their relationship to disappointment and failure.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Director Park, there’s a palpable anger that runs through your projects, from your aptly titled Vengeance trilogy to the romantic restlessness of “Decision to leave.” I’m curious if you see filmmaking as a way to contain the rage you feel towards the world, and how that has evolved for you as a filmmaker?
PC: Certainly, the films I’ve made in the past – as you mentioned – have depicted this feeling of rage in great detail, but for this film I wanted to take an approach that was the opposite of my past work. Man-su’s rage is captured in a single line from the film, where he says [paraphrased] “You managed me for 25 years.” He may have frustrations with the corporation or the capitalist system, but because he thinks realistically about his life, he accepts his inability to change them in some ways. He accepts the reality he lives in and instead tries to be pragmatic about his goals and benefits, leading him to think that if he wants his job back, he must kill other people.
The sad thing is that the targets he tries to eliminate are neither the targets of his rage nor the progenitors of his pain. These are people in a similar situation to his. He should be able to understand them and be friends with them. The great tragedy of this film is that its rage is aimed at the wrong target; he points his gun at people who are his double, those who look like him, those with whom he should sympathize the most, instead of the company that fired him in one fell swoop, even after having worked there for 25 years. This is also where the stupidity comes in: he considers people who look like him to be his targets. He cannot think of any other method and has failed to find an alternative to regain the trust and respect he has as a father and husband.
All candidates should have joined together to destroy the system. Your response reminds me of a scene where Man-su’s first target, Goo Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min), is so frustrated that he rolls outside screaming silently. Expressing our agony should always be okay, but in reality, sometimes all we want to do is scream bluntly.
PC: Even in this scene, Beom-mo wants to shout out loud, but fears his wife will hear him, so he has to hold it in as much as possible. He must ration his groans; I think that makes him more likeable. You feel bad for him because he looks so pathetic. After all, he has to do it.
Lee Byung-hun, through projects like “The Good, the Bad, the Weird”, “Emergency Declaration”, “Concrete Utopia”,… you had the opportunity to embody a very particular brand of Korean masculinity. Your role as Man-su in “No Other Choice” complicates things. Can you explain to us how your approach to the role of patriarchal figures has evolved throughout your career or how you perceive these roles in conversations?
kg: Man-su is just an ordinary man. His main goal is to protect his family, and that’s something I identify with; I may not have the same life as him, but initially the entry point to empathy wasn’t difficult. What was difficult was the extremity of these situations Man-su found himself in; my mind is not like his, so in trying to understand who he is, I first had to understand that these were not “ordinary decisions”. Understanding that, understanding that someone who doesn’t look like me can then be pushed in such a way to make these difficult choices, admitting that that was the really difficult part.
Unlike Man-su’s particular masculinity, because I was born and raised in Korea, I understand his embodiment of patriarchy. I think that because of this era of globalization and more coherent cultural exchange, we move together more easily in the face of cultural changes. Much of the macho spirit and male chauvinism that defined Korean men, I think, has largely disappeared. However, there are still traces of it; it’s not always easy, and so playing a “modernly masculine” character, for whom these traces of toxicity remain, was an interesting challenge.
Yeong-tak, your character in “Concrete Utopia,” has shades of Man-su, as both see their sense of provision as deeply tied to homeownership.
kg: I think both are very Korean stories in that regard. In “Concrete Utopia,” even in the aftermath of devastation, people’s sense of security is deeply tied to homeownership, and family protection comes from being nurtured within that home. It’s interesting to approach these ideas, but with different filmmakers.
Director Park, I am struck by the specter of Man-su’s father; he occupies the film as a kind of fantasy, one that leaves behind not just a gun, but particular narratives about what it means to be a provider and a man to his son. Through the process of adapting Donald Westlake’s novel, has it offered you an opportunity to reflect on the familiar narratives you grew up with (and those you wanted to accept or reject)
PC: (Laughs) I wasn’t really rebellious towards my parents, but I also wasn’t someone who obeyed everything they told me or asked me to do.
I like that Man-su’s father looks like a ghost in the film, lingering and flickering in the background; he is part of the film, but he is invisible. It was never intended to depict Man-su’s father in the film, but without Man-su’s father’s gun, which Man-su saw repeatedly day after day, Man-su might never have planned these murders in the first place. Assassinating your competition is a stupid idea in the first place, but the presence of a gun allowed Man-su to take action.
I think Man-su was trying to be different from his father. As his father raised and killed pigs, I think this motivated Man-su to become a plant lover. On top of that, Man-su dismantled the garage his father was hanging in and built a greenhouse instead. He wanted to live his life differently from his father.
Yet in the scene where his son, Si-one, is taken to the scene, Man-su quotes his own father’s words to his son. Basically, he tells his son to make a false statement to the police and, in doing so, passes on trauma and history that he didn’t want to inherit from his father in the first place. What Man-su didn’t want to inherit from his father, he still inherited, and he also passed the same vice on to his own son.
I’ll keep an eye out for “No Other Choice 2” which follows Si-one’s violent escapades. Lee Byung-hun, I was struck by a sentence A-ra said to Beom-mo: “It’s not the fact that you lost your job; It’s how you handled it. » Disappointment and rejection seem commonplace when working in the film industry; Has working on the project given you the opportunity to reflect on how you deal with moments of loss?
kg: (Laughs) Are you saying that now, if I run into trouble, I should just get rid of my competitors?
I mean, I’m not not saying that…
kg: I think actors learn a lot through the characters they play, and that also sometimes leads them to change their opinions. With any character I’ve played, my ego and total identity have been affected to some extent, and my worldview is constantly challenged. I think that, for many actors and even directors and creators who make art, when a project ends, the next job prospect is very tentative, and so many are still in a pseudo-state of unemployment. I think I’ve been very lucky to be able to choose my next project, but I know many creatives are still in a state of uncertainty.
At this point, though, even within your career, a role like “No Other Choice” is special because you get to flex your comedic muscles more.
LBH: I actually really like the black comedy genre. Even “Concrete Utopia”, I would say, belongs to this genre. The story is very dark and depressing, as it is a disaster project, but there are many ironic and humorous situations. A lot of people have seen me in action films and also in very serious dramas, and so, especially for a Western audience, it might be new to see me in a more comedic role.
Director Park, what you explained about the hereditary trauma between Si-one and Man-su reminds me of another sentence Lee Mi-ri said: “If you do something wrong, that means we’re in this together. » There is a loyalty to the family you explore that is both toxic and protective; I have the impression that deconstructing the security of the family unit is a provocation which has been a theme of your work.
Yes, it’s a great idea because Mi-ri is someone who doesn’t blame others, and even though she hasn’t done anything wrong herself, she still takes responsibility. Even though she played no role in her husband’s murders, she is someone who asks herself, “Did I play a role?” I really wanted to show the maturity of this character.
Yet on closer inspection, the irony is that, perhaps unknowingly, she has played a more direct role in what is happening. and one might think so. She was the one who inspired the first murder because she said something that sounded like “I hope that person gets struck by lightning.” There’s also a moment where she reminded Man-su that he was an alcoholic and nearly died from choking on his own vomit, which inspired the second murder method.
Even if she didn’t do it intentionally, she inspired the murder twice. Through this, I wanted to show how closely connected this couple is and that one person’s wrongdoings are not just those of the individual. Even if a person commits an act, it is not their sole responsibility. Everyone is involved.
Lee Byung-hun, I am struck by director Park’s use of light in the film. There is of course blue light from phone screens, but I also think of natural light; how he bathes the family in the opening scenes, how he blinds Man-su in one of his interviews.
kg: Lighting is definitely a very important element of this project and something that has a deep meaning in the story that Man-su goes through, because the light can be representative of the difficulties, trials or even discomforts that the character may encounter. I wanted to point out that for director Park’s films, even the smallest prop or the smallest distant branch has meaning. There are people on the crew who pay immense attention to detail in every element. Whether it is color or lighting, all these aspects have been thought out with great care.
The interview scene you mention is one that I really like because it’s a moment where Man-su is harassed by all these elements of his environment. The lighting further reinforces the feeling that the world is after him, and it fuels the frustration and despair that later turns into something worse.
I also want to mention the moment when Man-su buries his last victim and his wife holds the flashlight. The screen splits in two; it’s a moment of genius on director Park’s part to highlight the different light sources guiding the characters, the artificial sources they use to illuminate their various misdeeds, while under the natural light of the moon.
“No other choice» is now in theaters via NEON.