Lee Byung-hun stars in ‘No Different Selection’. Photograph: CJ Leisure.
Opening in theaters on December 25 is ‘No Different Selection,’ directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, and Cha Seung-won.
Launch Date: Dec 25, 2025
Run Time: 2 hr 19 min
Funds: $12,200,000
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Preliminary Ideas
Lee Byung-hun stars in ‘No Different Selection’. Photograph: CJ Leisure.
The movies of director Park Chan-wook effortlessly combine and match genres like crime thriller, psychological drama, horror, and satire with out breaking a sweat, and often leaving you shocked by the audacious method by which they accomplish that. With ‘No Different Selection,’ Park has created an acidic office comedy that’s additionally a darkish psychological research, in addition to a ruthless condemnation of late-stage world capitalism.
And – no shock in any respect – all of it works completely. Whereas maybe a tad too lengthy, ‘No Different Selection’ is each entertaining and enraging, extremely related and wickedly absurd – and a tragic, prescient take a look at the best way that life is changing into ever so tougher to dwell and the best way it drives a few of us to determined conduct.
Story and Course
(Proper) Son Ye-jin stars in ‘No Different Selection’. Photograph: CJ Leisure.
Based mostly on the novel ‘The Ax’ by Donald Westlake, ‘No Different Selection’ follows Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), a supervisor at a paper manufacturing firm who’s brutally downsized after 25 years – together with a lot of his crew – by the American company that takes over the plant. Man-su tells his spouse Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin) and their kids – his stepson Si-one and their neurodivergent daughter Ri-one – that he’ll shortly discover one other job inside three months.
However greater than a 12 months passes and the household is compelled to tighten their belts, even sending their canine to dwell together with her dad and mom and placing their beloved home – Man-su’s childhood house — up on the market, with their smug neighbor occupied with shopping for it. Mi-ri herself additionally takes a job as assistant to a good-looking dentist (Yoo Yeon-seok) and Man-su is quickly satisfied she’s sleeping with him, at the same time as he himself develops a painful toothache that he refuses to do something about.
As Man-su works at awful retail gigs simply to earn some cash, he turns into obsessive about getting a place on the Moon Paper papermaking firm that’s presently held by the terrible, self-absorbed supervisor Seon-chul (Park Hee-soon). Decided to get Seon-chul’s job in any respect prices, Man-su hatches a plan to kill him, discover out who else may be up for the place through a faux job itemizing, and kill them as nicely.
Director Park Chan-wook on the set of ‘No Different Selection’. Photograph: CJ Leisure.
The precision and full management of tone with which Park tells this story is illustrated by two sequences by which somebody is marked for loss of life. The primary veers steadily over the road into full absurdity – virtually slapstick comedy – whereas the second is tragic, horrifying, and a bitter indication of how shortly Man-su is shedding his soul, and the way heartless the circumstances are that he even will get to that time. Even when the film is humorous – which is extra continuously than you may suppose – it’s additionally suffused with the type of existential disappointment and concern that working folks know all too nicely.
It is this mixture of black comedy and succinct, scathing social commentary that makes ‘No Different Selection’ such a bracing and unique work – and it’s scary that it’s related proper now regardless that it’s primarily based on a novel written in 1997. We’ll point out once more that it’s a bit overlong, with a few of its subplots struggling for the correct amount of consideration. However in any other case that is sharp work from Park Chan-wook, with an ending that’s equal components melancholy and unnerving, and it’s additionally superbly shot from begin to end by cinematographer Kim Woo-hyung.
Forged and Performances
(L to R) Son Ye-jin and Lee Byung-hun star in ‘No Different Selection’. Photograph: CJ Leisure.
Lee Byung-hun is probably finest identified to audiences today because the icy Entrance Man in ‘Squid Recreation,’ and his cool demeanor has graced numerous different motion and crime movies. ‘No Different Selection’ finds him taking part in a assured, profitable middle-class supervisor, husband, and father who has the rug pulled out from below him, and Lee handles the gradual unraveling of Man-su beautifully. Equally wonderful is Son Ye-jin as his spouse, Mi-ri, who turns into the true pillar of power within the household as her husband’s self-image takes a brutal beating.
Among the many supporting gamers, Lee Sung-min because the dissolute Goo Beom-mo – a would-be rival to Man-su for the Moon Paper job – and Yeom Hye-ran as Beom-mo’s unhinged spouse, A-ra, present one of many movie’s funniest moments, whereas Cha Seung-won is quietly poignant as Ko Si-jo, who waxes nostalgic over his paper manufacturing unit days whereas working in a shoe retailer and expressing his have to spend extra time along with his daughter.
Last Ideas
Lee Byung-hun stars in ‘No Different Selection’. Photograph: CJ Leisure.
With movies like ‘Oldboy,’‘The Handmaiden,’ and ‘Resolution to Depart,’ Park Chan-wook charts human foibles like vengeance, obsession, and greed, and by some means manages to make his flawed characters relatable and their conditions humorous at the same time as they develop extra untenable and infrequently grotesque.
That custom carries on in ‘No Different Selection,’ with its more and more determined protagonist and equally distressed supporting characters, every of whom is subjected to some type of direct or oblique humiliation because of the heartless company world they discover themselves in. All of the characters confront the title dilemma at one level or one other, and director Park cuttingly reminds us that we’d not be too far behind.
‘No Different Selection’ receives a rating of 90 out of 100.
Lee Byung-hun stars in ‘No Different Selection’. Photograph: CJ Leisure.
What’s the plot of ‘No Different Selection’?
After Yoo Man-su loses his job at a paper firm when it is bought by an American firm, he launches a determined plan to kill the opposite males who’re up for the same job that he needs at one other paper producer, in order that he can keep his house, his earnings, and his household’s snug life.
Who’s within the solid of ‘No Different Selection’?
- Lee Byung-hun as Yoo Man-su
- Son Ye-jin as Lee Mi-ri
- Park Hee-soon as Choi Seon-chul
- Lee Sung-min as Goo Beom-mo
- Yeom Hye-ran as Lee A-ra
- Cha Seung-won as Ko Si-jo
- Yoo Yeon-seok as Oh Jin-ho
- Kim Woo-seung as Yoo Si-won
- Choi So-yul as Yoo Ri-won
Films and TV Exhibits by Park Chan-wook