Park Chan-wook Turns to Korea After Years Trying to Make His Thriller in Hollywood

Park Chan-wook spent more than a decade trying to make his latest film, No Other Choice, as an American picture before American studios balked and he returned to South Korea to produce it. Based on Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax, the story follows a laid-off paper company manager who begins murdering rivals to secure a new job.

Park said he initially wanted to set the film in the United States because he saw it as a story about capitalism and felt the novel’s East Coast setting and protagonist were inherently American. When Hollywood financing proved insufficient, Park accepted a suggestion to adapt the project for Korean audiences.

The move reunited him with Lee Byung Hun, who plays Mansu, the struggling ex-manager. The pair first worked together on Joint Security Area, an earlier breakout for both. No Other Choice has been a box-office hit in South Korea, won festival awards and earned strong reviews. In the United States it has received three Golden Globe nominations and been shortlisted for best international feature at the Oscars.

Park, 62, is known for films that mix intense visuals, dark humor and stomach-churning violence. He described the movie as one of his funniest, with comic moments born of misery—such as a scene in which Mansu buries a rival and forces sausages and vodka down the man’s throat to stage a drunken death.

Key Topics

Culture, Park Chan-wook, Lee Byung Hun, No Other Choice, Donald E. Westlake, The Ax