{"id":55351,"date":"2025-11-16T05:16:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T05:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/55351\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T05:16:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T05:16:16","slug":"no-other-choice-director-park-chan-wook-on-how-it-became-a-korean-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/55351\/","title":{"rendered":"‘No Other Choice’ Director Park Chan-wook On How It Became A Korean Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNo Other Choice<\/a> is the second film adaptation of Donald Westlake\u2019s novel The Ax. Director Park Chan-wook<\/a> actually intended it to be an American film but could not find investors for it. Now that the Korean version is already acclaimed ahead of its Christmas release, Park says he is glad he didn\u2019t make it in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the credits, when you see the special thanks section, I almost considered putting in the American studios that turned me down but I didn\u2019t,\u201d Park said on the Contenders Film: Los Angeles <\/a>stage.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the film, Man-soo (Lee Byung-hun) is laid off from a paper factory. The bosses claim they had no other choice but to downsize. Likewise, Park was forced to make the film in Korea.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt the time, I had no other choice but to change this into a Korean film,\u201d Park said. \u201cThanks to that decision, I was able to work with such a great actor, so I really view it as a blessing today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to Lee, the delay also gave Park another element in the adaptation, which he co-wrote with Lee Kyoung-mi, Jahye Lee and Don McKellar. Man-soo becomes so desperate to find another job that he murders the other candidates for a position he\u2019s applied for. However, in 2025 Man-soo also faces AI replacing veteran workers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBecause it\u2019s such an important issue today I decided to incorporate it,\u201d Park said. \u201cMan-soo goes through the process of eliminating human competitors only to be faced with a far scarier AI competitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLee said it was his job to convince the audience Man-soo could resort to murder.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: The 2026 Oscars: Everything We Know About The Ceremony, Host, Date & More So Far<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMan-soo is just an ordinary guy but he is placed in a very impossible situation that he is trying to escape,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWho would commit murder because they were fired? All the situations are so extreme so it\u2019s my immense homework to be able to convince the audience of Man-soo\u2019s motives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSince finishing No Other Choice, which is now South Korea\u2019s official Oscar submission<\/a>, Park is in development mode, again struggling to find investors for two potential American films, a sci-fi action movie and a Western. No Other Choice has taken up all of his time since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve actually run out of ideas for my next Korean films,\u201d Park said. \u201cI haven\u2019t had enough time because of this promotional tour so I need to spend a lot of time working on that next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Oscars, Grammys, Guilds & More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tCheck back Monday for the panel video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No Other Choice is the second film adaptation of Donald Westlake\u2019s novel The Ax. Director Park Chan-wook actually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[31183,31184,48,52,51,34461,47,50,49,34462,34463,34390,34464],"class_list":["post-55351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-awardsnews","tag-contenders-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lee-byung-hun","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-neon","tag-no-other-choice","tag-novid","tag-park-chan-wook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}